Barack Obama wants Turkey to acknowledge the Genocide

by Vincent Lima

Published: Friday May 01, 2009 in Editorial Notebook

With Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (rear right) present, President Barack Obama urged Turkey to address the “terrible events of 1915” in a way that is “honest, open, and constructive.” Ankara, April 6, 2009. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

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Yerevan - By 9:10 p.m. Yerevan time, I was impatient. "Will he go ahead and break his promise already? It's noon on April 24 in Washington, and we have a paper to put out," I wrote on Facebook.

When, almost two hours later, President Barack Obama's statement on "Armenian Remembrance Day" arrived, I clicked Ctrl-F and searched for "geno." Not found. No need for a new front page, with extra-bold, extra-black letters (all caps and italics, perhaps). We could put a few finishing touches on the newspaper and go to press.

There was no question that as Armenian-Americans we were deeply disappointed in our president. The comments I saw in the minutes, hours, and days that followed reflected heartbreak and a deep sense of having been betrayed by a friend.

Betrayal was the word first used by the ANCA to describe the president's refusal to use the word genocide in his statement. USAPAC treated it as a "missed opportunity," meaning Armenian-Americans were disappointed, but Mr. Obama still had time to fulfill his campaign pledge. The Armenian Assembly characterized the pledge as an "empty promise."

Mr. Obama's leap forward

Over the weekend, I had a chance to read the presidential statement again. The following passage strikes me as especially significant:

"I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed. My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts."

For many years now, we have sought a presidential statement that calls the Aghed or Meds Yeghern a genocide. And that is the statement Mr. Obama promised us. But let's take a step back and recall why we seek such a statement.

We seek the presidential statement as a way of achieving universal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and especially recognition by Turkey.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, for example, whose political arm in the United States is the ANCA, announced as late as Monday, "the universal recognition and condemnation, especially by Turkey, of the Armenian Genocide" is an essential element of Armenia's national security.

So if we seek recognition "especially by Turkey," we may have an ally in the president of the United States. In his pre-election statement he had noted, "I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey's acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide." And now, as president, he is stating an interest in "the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts."

And his interest in this matter as president is not limited to a statement on April 24, 2009. Let us not forget or underestimate what he did on April 6, 2009. The president went to Turkey, stood before the Grand National Assembly, and urged Turkey to address the "terrible events of 1915" in a way that is "honest, open, and constructive."

As betrayed as we may feel by his failure to use the words "Armenian Genocide," we must acknowledge that his statement before the Turkish parliament was a historic step.

Not a bilateral issue

While Mr. Obama's stated intention is one that we should fully support, his stated means are problematic. In his statement of April 24, he wrote, "The best way to advance that goal right now is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as a part of their efforts to move forward."

The president is suggesting that Turkey is most likely to acknowledge the Genocide in the context of developing normal bilateral relations with Armenia. And, he said in Turkey, he wants to avoid undermining that process by using the word genocide himself.

The approach is problematic for various reasons that have been discussed in the press (see, for example, the Armenian Reporter's editorial for April 25). The key reasons are:

First, the Turkish government is not exhibiting goodwill about confronting the past. At the very news conference in Turkey where Mr. Obama was careful to avoid undermining the process, the president of Turkey, Abdullah Gül, engaged in a full-throated denial of the Genocide. If he wanted to show good will, he could have expressed openness to reviewing the sins of an earlier era.

Second, genocide is a crime against humanity, not a bilateral issue between Armenia and Turkey. It cannot rightly be a matter for negotiations between Turkey and Armenia. I have yet to see a persuasive argument that reducing international pressure on Turkey will encourage it to come to terms with its past.

Armenia's role

The Armenian government has helped the Turkish government make its case for forbearance on Mr. Obama's part. The optimistic and ill-timed joint statement of the foreign ministries of Armenia and Turkey on April 22 oddly came only two days after President Serge Sargsian explicitly acknowledged that the talks were not going so well.

Mr. Sargsian had told the Wall Street Journal on April 20 that his government and "the Turkish side in the negotiations supported the idea that we are negotiating without any preconditions." But, he said, "I think already now the motivation of Turkey has decreased, because . . . Prime Minister Erdogan is now offering preconditions." Indeed, on April 19 Mr. Erdogan had announced, "If the Armenian occupation of Azeri territory continues, Turkey will not open its border gate."