New fairy tales, old histories

Armenia's attempts to ensure the recognition of the Armenian genocide ahead of the anniversary of the 1915 events has been less intense recently. This had several reasons: the growing importance of Turkey and Azerbaijan on the regional and global political scene, closer ties between Turkey and the USA and the warming in Turkey's relations with Israel, and consequently, with the Jewish lobby. 

Despite the fact that President Obama did not use the word genocide in his traditional address on 24 April, he said that "half a million Armenians were subjected to mass annihilation in the Ottoman Empire", which upset Ankara. The Turkish Foreign Ministry described the statement as a "one-dimensional commentary about disputable historical events". 

At the same time, it needs to be mentioned that the US Congress has not passed a bill in recognition of "the Armenian genocide". 

We believe that one of the reasons for the absence of commotion around the "genocide" this year is the fact that the global Armenian community aim to direct all their efforts towards the 100th anniversary to be marked in 2015. 

First and foremost, it needs to be said that the year 2015 is not the deadline by which Armenians need to fulfill all their plans. On the contrary, the year will mark the beginning of a large-scale propaganda war as a result of which Turkey will be subjected to unprecedented pressure by the international community. So far Armenia conducted its campaign in individual countries and anti-Turkish and pro-Armenian forces in the governments of these countries have been involved in them. Now they are starting an all-out mobilization to fuel anti-Turkish sentiment in the international community. Turkey is likely to be hit the hardest in 2023 - the hundredth anniversary of the Turkish Republic. 

History of an adventure spanning a century 

In the first half of the 20th century, Armenian community created a "scientific" basis for the invented genocide of the Armenian people which allegedly took place in Ottoman Turkey during the first world war.

As the pseudo-scientists sought to prove the brutality of the Turkish government against Armenians, they kept silent about a large number of Muslim victims who died at the hands of Armenian terrorists and the guerrilla forces of the opponents of the Ottoman Empire. 

The beginning of the 1970s marked 70 years since pro-Armenian forces first attempted to create a myth about the "genocide" and a new phase in their campaign began - to direct, through their bloody acts of revenge and terror, the world's attention to the "long-suffering" Armenian people. 

Starting from 1973 to the end of the 1980s, global Armenian terrorism through organizations such as ASALA and DzhSag, carried out hundreds of attacks on Turkish diplomats and public officers. The aim of these terrorist acts was to remind the international community of the "genocide of Armenians". 

After the terrorist organizations were destroyed, the Armenian community changed the focus of their activities. Starting from the mid 1990s we have witnessed political campaigns aimed at ensuring that members of the international community legally recognize the 1915 events as a genocide. To attain this end, the Armenian diaspora created special organizations, some of which carried out very successful campaigns in a number of countries. 

"Remember, remind, demand"

To understand the Armenian nationalists' strategy, it is necessary to point out several tactics in their comprehensive campaign. 

First of all, they tried to push through laws banning the denial of the genocide, similar to the law on the criminalization of Holocaust denial. 

Despite the fact that such a law was only adopted in Switzerland and failed in France last year, its author Val?rie Boyer, who paid an illegal visit to Azerbaijan's occupied territories, said that "together with European parliamentarians we continue our attempts to ensure that the issue is raised again."

In addition, there has been increased pressure on the Turkish government and public to recognize the genocide and apologize to the Armenian people. In this context, the campaign to ensure that Turkey apologizes to the Armenians, which was launched by several fringe representatives of Turkish intelligentsia (some of whom are of Armenian descent) in 2000, as well as attempts to facilitate the warming of relations and encourage the opening of the border with Armenia are all parts of the global Armenian strategy. 

Armenian organizations' dissatisfaction with the fact that the US president does not use the word "genocide", attempts to push through laws that criminalize denial of the so-called genocide and calls to the Turkish leadership to simply apologize to Armenians for events of the last century so that "the historical truth can prevail" - serve one aim - to provide a legal base for an invented genocidal act. 

The term "genocide" is first of all a legal term and its adoption will naturally involve legal responsibility. The ultimate aim of the Armenian community becomes evident here - to receive monetary compensation from Turkey and to create grounds for its territorial claims…

These two aims, rather than "the celebration of historical justice" or paying respects to the memory of the victims of the tragic events, are their main motivation. 

Armenian leaders have voiced their territorial claims to Turkey before. Commenting on the prospect of the return of "western Armenia" (eastern Anatolia) on 23 July 2011, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said: "all this depends on the future generation". By saying this he encouraged Armenian youth to occupy parts of the universally acknowledged territories of modern Turkey.

Participants in a recent session of the pan-Armenian commission for coordinating events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the "genocide of Armenians" held in Yerevan openly discussed the territorial and material claims. 

The commission was set up in Armenia two years ago and included high ranking officials from Armenia and the separatist Karabakh republic, religious figures and representatives of the major political, charity and cultural organizations of the Armenian diaspora. Local committees were set up in different parts of the country. Representatives of the committee recently gathered in Yerevan to design special programmes which are to be presented to the session of the pan-Armenian commission on 30 May. 

The speeches made by participants in the session and individual Armenian public figures make it possible to draw appropriate  conclusions on the Armenian strategy for the period of 2015 and 2023.

Addressing participants in the session, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, Aram I, summed up this strategy briefly: "to remember, remind and demand". Speaking about the necessity to demand compensation, Aram I remembered the international forum called "from recognition to compensation", organized last year, which discussed legal means of exerting pressure on Turkey. 

Interestingly, Aik Demoyan, the secretary of the commission, said: "we know that we cannot reverse certain consequences of the Armenian genocide, such as the deaths of the victims and destroyed churches. Nevertheless, the main consequence of the events is the loss of territory."

This is basically Armenia's major goal - to secure a lump sum as a compensation and seize territories. Various Armenian committees and individuals last year placed lawsuits, mainly at American judicial bodies, regarding the compensation of material loss Armenia suffered under the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. While previously these lawsuits tended to be rejected due to their absurdity, now Armenians tend to apply to higher judicial authorities. According to Demoyan, it is possible that Armenia may lodge a lawsuit at an international court. The suit may refer to territorial as well as material claims. 

On 24 April, two Armenian spiritual leaders - Karekin II and Adam I - demanded that Turkey should return Armenian church property.

Armenians' material and territorial claims to Turkey come from different sources, including Kiro Ma-noyan, spokes-man for the Das-hnaktyutun terrorist party and its leader Vahan Hovhannisyan, who speak about preparations for a research project which they said will present various aspects of territorial cla-ims; opposition leader Raffi Ho-vhannisyan who says that Ar-menia never recognized Tur-key's state borders; the director of the institute of Oriental Studies of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, Ruben Safrastyan, who claims that Armenia should declare its territorial claims, and so forth. As you can see, there are a lot of dreamers and adventurers among them.  

Given the difficult economic situation it is experiencing, Armenia does need monetary compensation. it seems like the global Armenian community cannot think of anything else apart from replenishing an empty treasury at the expense of another country's taxpayers. As for the territorial claims, this is harder to understand. Being incapable to keep the population from emigrating en masse, what is the logic of laying claim to foreign lands? 

In any event, all this points to the fact that in the coming years we will witness an intensified and comprehensive campaign against Turkey. These campaigns will seek to attain crazy ideas, such as the recognition of the genocide that never took place or territorial claims and material compensation.