POLITICS IN THE RAW

"Do you know what the most brazen challenge in history looks like? It's when after decades, a criminal whose arms are covered in blood up to the elbows declares that he has been re-born, that he admits to doing it, pays money to the victims' relatives and calls it financial compensation and says the case closed and then suddenly starts accusing others of committing the same kinds of crimes." This quote from a speech by one of the most famous and influential political figures of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre, is the best reflection of the German Bundestag's recent recognition of the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire as "Armenian genocide".

It would have seemed that the century-old myth of "genocide" had finally started to crumble in the past year. Even in France, a country where there is a very powerful Armenian diaspora and the Armenian issue had been used for centuries to put pressure on Turkey, the "Armenian genocide" has not been talked about that often. The centennial anniversary of those events last year also failed to attract the global attention that Armenia needs so much.

One should also recall the verdict that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) passed on 15 October 2015 in the case of "Dogu Perincek v Switzerland". The court ruling says: "The essence and nature of the events of the year 1915 remain debatable. There is no court ruling that would characterize those events. This is the difference between the events of 1915 and the Jewish Holocaust which was committed during the Second World War. The events of 1915 are a topic for debates and disputes among historians."

The decision of the German parliament may have come as a surprise to some people, and even the Turkish diaspora seemed to be calm, believing that the Bundestag would not do it. However, if we recall political developments that have taken place both within Turkey and in its relationship with the EU, we can see that the decision of the German parliament had long been brewing as a subject of blackmail and pressure on Ankara.

Why now? 

It became known on 16 May that the German parliament planned to recognize the 1915 events as "Armenian genocide". Things would have been okay but just a few days before that it was announced in Turkey that the ruling Justice and Development Party would soon hold an extraordinary congress and the incumbent party chairman, Ahmet Davutoglu, would not run for this post. Effectively, that constituted an announcement of the resignation of the Turkish prime minister. Many influential American and European publications gave a fairly negative reaction to this development. They bitterly said that the West lost its faithful companion within the Turkish leadership in the shape of Davutoglu. After all, Davutoglu was the one who initiated a thaw between Ankara and Brussels.

Immediately after it became known that Davutogolu might resign, the EU suspended work on a visa-free-travel agreement with Turkey. The news came from Strasbourg on 11 May. According to the agreement, in exchange for Turkey blocking the way for refugees from the Middle East to Europe, Brussels promised Ankara 6bn euros for the needs of those refugees and the abolition of the visa regime for Turkish citizens by summer 2016 - however, only provided that Turkey fulfilled five EU conditions by the end of June (the full list of requirements set for the Turkish leadership contains 72 points). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the agreement needed to be revised because it contradicted Turkish national interests. Also, Turkish media reports suggested that there were major turning points in Turkish foreign policy with regard to Syria and Russia. Already back then, analysts predicted that relations between Turkey and the West could worsen soon. A response from the West did not take long to arrive. However, the response came from where nobody expected it to.

You too, Brutus?

Germany is Turkey's key trade partner. It tops the list of importers of Turkish goods. In addition, according to the most conservative estimates, Germany is home to just under 4m Turks, which is many more than Armenians in Armenia. Therefore, one cannot say that the notorious activities of the Armenian diaspora have a strong impact on German politicians. Natives of Turkey are present in many areas of life in Germany, from the football team to the Bundestag. Incidentally, paradoxical as it may seem, members of Turkish origin were among those who actively promoted the bill on the recognition of the "Armenian genocide" and voted for it. The actual bill was developed by Cem Ozdemir, a Turk, who made absolutely opposite statements 15 years ago.

"Parliament is not a venue for discussion on historical issues. I would not recommend that my colleagues in the German Bundestag follow France's example. The events that took place in 1915 and before that in 1895 should not be discussed either in Washington or Paris" - this is a quote from an article by Ozdemir, published in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 5 April 2001. Back then, Ozdemir called on the German parliament to refrain from making a "big mistake" such as recognition of "Armenian genocide".

However, here is a recent statement he made: "I believe that Ankara will be very angry about the adoption of the bill (to recognize the "genocide"). But the German parliament will not follow the Turkish regime's lead. After our parliament adopts this law, it will be very hard for Turkey to deny the 'genocide'."

But what is it that made Mr Ozdemir change his position 180 degrees within such a short period in history? Ozdemir explained that the reason for his political acrobatics was that the Zurich protocols signed in 2007 never produced the desired effect and Turkey never opened its borders with Armenia.

Does this mean that the behaviour of the Turkish leadership forced Ozdemir to "believe" that there was "genocide" 101 years ago?! Would no "historical evaluations" of those events have come if Turkey had gone for ungrounded concessions verging on betrayal of national interests?!

"There is a second bottom in this matter. Just one person voted against and one abstained. Is this issue that important to the Germans? Last year marked 100 years since the 1915 events. Why did they not make that decision back then? It makes one wonder. An instruction to this effect might have come from above. Now I wonder - how, following these developments, will German leaders look me and our prime minister in the eye?" Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

A very interesting statement in this regard came from Oliver Wittke, an MP from the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, who was the only one to abstain: "The participation in the vote of only 400 deputies out of 630, that is to say, the absence of the opinion of one-third, makes one wonder about many things."

"The German parliament approved the resolution recognizing the crimes against Armenians in 1915 as genocide because Turkey does not want to cooperate with its partners on a number of issues, making scandals instead." This is an opinion that was expressed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In this way, the Russian foreign minister indirectly confirmed that there were political motives behind the bill that the Bundestag passed recently.

Who are the judges?

It is becoming obvious that the German parliament simply fulfilled a political order. Why? What for? Before answering these questions, one should once again have a look at to what extent this move was justified and what moral rights those who passed it had to do so.

The above-mentioned court ruling says: "The events of 1915 are different from the Holocaust, and to recognize a genocide, either a domestic or international court needs to recognize those actions as genocide." Why, in this case, have either Armenians of the world, or their Western backers, who are so concerned about "restoration of historical justice", never appealed to international courts? Maybe because a court would start a probe and solicit proof, documents and evidence, and the myth about "genocide" may eventually vanish?! Politicians pass a verdict but do not say a word about sources or facts they refer to. How democratic is it for European countries not to acknowledge the right of the "defendant" to defence? Furthermore, Germany, like most countries, signed the Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, which clearly states that only the International Court in The Hague has a right to recognize any acts as genocide.

There is one more important point: What country comes to our mind when we talk about mass extermination of people? No, we will not talk about the Holocaust. Germany officially acknowledged it, apologized and pays compensations. A lot has been said and written about this. We will not say that during the Second World War (and actually before it, too) all non-Germans in Germany were derogatorily referred to as "Untermensch" (subhuman) and subjected to mass extermination. We will not talk about the extermination of hundreds of thousands of gypsies in Germany and lands it occupied, the extermination of 10 per cent of Poles, 3m Soviet prisoners of war in concentration camps, the "Generalplan Ost" that envisaged the forced eviction of up to 75-85 per cent of population from Poland and occupied parts of the Soviet Union and the settlement of those hapless people in Western Siberia, the North Caucasus and South America; or the extermination of all mentally ill and disabled people.

Suffice it to remember the genocide of the Herero and Nama tribes, which were exterminated in 1904-07 by colonial troops of imperial Germany. About 65,000 (up to 80 per cent) people from the Herero (Bantu) tribe and 10,000 (50 per cent) people from the Nama (Hottentot) tribe were killed in German South-West Africa in what is now Namibia during a violent suppression of a popular uprising.

Incidentally, Germany is still reluctant to hear about compensation to descendants of African tribes. It cites a very interesting argument. Berlin believes that the events that took place before 1951, the year the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide entered into force, cannot be considered genocide. By what logic, in this case, did German MPs describe the events of 1915 as genocide?!

Moreover, analysis of the events of 1915 surely brings up one more fact that members of the Bundestag are unlikely to be happy to hear about. The thing is that the decision to deport Armenians from the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which the Bundestag now regards as "Armenian genocide", was actually taken under pressure from Germany. One should know that the deportation of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was above all a military operation. All military operations were led by the General Staff of the Turkish Army. The post of Chief of Staff of the Turkish High Command from November 1914 to 1917 was held by Gen Friedrich Bronsart von Schellendorf - a German subject. The general himself admitted to his direct involvement in and leading the operation in the newspaper Deutsche Allegemeine Zeitung dated 24 July 1921. Here is what he wrote: "The Turkish Muslim population fled their lands as a result of the advancement of Armenian gangs. We were not able to stop it all. Therefore, it was decided to deport the Armenians." The advancement of Russian troops with the help of Armenian rebels on the ground jeopardized a vital German project - the Baghdad railway. In other words, before accusing the Young Turks of committing the deportation, which the German parliamentarians have described as "genocide", it makes sense to remember that the Young Turk government, especially its military wing, was under the control of imperial Germany.

Humiliation for Armenians

The Armenian issue has never been purely a dispute between Turks and Armenians. This issue has always been the subject of debates between the Turks and the imperialists. Even leaders of the Armenian clergy concede that countries that have recognized the "genocide" are not worried about the fate of the Armenian people at all.

The locum tenens for the Constantinople patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Aram Ateshyan, sent a letter to President Erdogan condemning the Bundestag resolution on the "genocide" of Armenians. According to the Armenian newspaper Agos, Archbishop Aram Ateshyan said that by passing the resolution, "the imperialist powers took advantage of the problem of the Armenian people". "Your wording 'the events that took place in the tragic era of the First World War' with regard to an almost complete extermination of a people by the state of which they were citizens is an insult to the memory of those victims and humiliation of the survivors," his letter says.

So, the Bundestag's decision once again demonstrated that the Armenian issue is just a tool in the West's policy towards Turkey. By means of putting pressure on Ankara, the West pursues several goals at once.

First, to make [Turkey] compensate for the "tragedy and pain" of the Armenian people. This means billions of dollars in compensation to the strong Armenian lobby. Of even greater importance for the Western powers is opening of Turkey's borders with Armenia and all kinds of support for that country [Armenia]. In this way, through a NATO member country, Armenia would fall into the arms of the West, and in addition to Georgia and Ukraine, one more russophobic country would appear in the post-Soviet area. Given the historical mentality of Armenian elites, the prospect of such a treacherous act with regard to their saviour, that is to say, Russia, is quite likely.

Later on, the famous 72 criteria for Turkey's admission into the EU come into play. Even though these criteria are presented as "strengthening of democratic institutions and civil society, and respect for human rights" and other fashionable "liberal values", they actually seek a significant reduction in Turkey's independence and sovereignty - transfer of former church lands to the Armenian Church, then bringing the issue of the so-called "Western Armenia" to the foreground, then "protection of national and ethnic rights of minorities", i.e. "full restoration of rights" of the Constantinople Orthodox diocese, creation of a "Kurdish autonomy", etc.

The implementation of the "Armenian genocide recognition" project by European countries and pressure exerted on Turkey regarding this issue also aim to unleash psycho-historical war. It is not for nothing that almost all resolutions on the so-called "genocide" indicate the dates 1915 to 1923, i.e. before the establishment of the present-day Republic of Turkey. This is an attempt at dealing a blow to the Turkish people on a psychological level and to blacken the founders of present-day Turkey, describing them as villains and criminals against humanity. If the so-called "Armenian genocide" continued during the establishment of present-day Turkey as well, then it will be possible to describe this country as a state that was created as a result of genocide, and tomorrow it will even be possible to question the legitimacy of the Republic of Turkey.

FACTS FROM MODERN HISTORY

Over the past 10 years, the Turkish authorities have initiated numerous gestures of goodwill towards Armenia - football diplomacy, condolences from Ankara to Armenians over the events of 1915, the signing of the Zurich agreements towards the opening of borders with Armenia, and a visit by a former foreign minister to Yerevan where he was met by protesters who set fire to Turkish flags. However, the Armenian diaspora and the Armenian government rejected the hand that was extended to them