E-Mail 'Not Even a Handshake: Erdogan Spins ‘Freakish’ Debacle in Kars' To A Friend

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1. Only an ignorant will claim that Erdogan’s motive is to try to appeal to the powerful!!! MHP votes in Kars. Even a quick look at the two latest general elections will show that DEHAP (the Kurdish party) got the most votes (19%) during 2002 elections, but could not send representatives because of the threshold, AKP was around 2 points less at the time. And in the 2007 elections AKP got close to 42 % of the votes, increasing its share almost 2,2 times in comparison to 2002, whereas MHP increased only from 11 to 19 %. Some Turkish intellectuals do tend to explain anything and everything with rather cliches about what Erdogan is doing, which by the way is not necessarily backed by solid data. If anything, AKP was able to convince pro-DEHAP people, otherwise one would have a hard time to explain the rise both in AKP and MHP votes. In the national ballot MHP can’t come close to AKP, the municipalities are a different matter, but the latest elections were on 2009 and even if MHP shows a wonderful track record in the next months, the municipality in Kars is from AKP as well -still 5% ahead of MHP… And AKP has a wonderful track record of holding on strong in places where they already guaranteed municipalities.

2. Baskin Oran says, “This AKP is the best we have for the moment. Kemalists are definitely worse.” That is absolutely true and should be noted by the Armenian press.  Erdogan is very easy to mock, but those waiting in the wings are much, much worse. We shouldn’t necessarily think that giving Erdogan a black eye is a good thing for Armenians. This is election season in Turkey. Celebratory echoing and publishing of what the anti-AKP forces in Turkey are saying about Erdogan has serious risks. Their criticisms, while often accurate, are every bit as political as Erdogan’s absurd stances.

3. i believe in peace, i am a practising artist and hold a degree and worked at new york city’s meropolitan museum for four years during which time the taliban was destroying buddha stautes in afghanistan….i love this piece of art whether it is about us or not.
   please i hope it stands and truly does help our two nations build friendship.

4. This is a great, balanced and very informative article Nanor.
   Thanks for bringing the background so completely to our attention.
   AST

5. Last time, I wrote a similar comment in an Armenian website and people didn’t believe me I was Turkish but I’m really sincere. I have read a lot about this issue and I’m totally convinced that a terrible genocide occurred. I’m really ashamed of every part of this including the denial. I’m really on your side and I’m in favor of reparations or other types of compensation. I’m now writing a Turkish language blog about this issue and trying to educate people. I hope, one day, we will resolve this issue and we can have good relations as neighbors.

6. Cihan thank you for your support.  Where can we see your blog?

7. “What had the Ottoman Empire given the peoples under its yoke apart from massacres, tyranny, and plunder?”

   This seems to be a total denial of centuries of Armenian history.  I am not suprised that there was no mention of the Greek president (not Cyprus) later telling him how they shared the same fate in the hands of “barbarians”.  Such nice and friendly people!  Why they can not get along with Turks is a mystery!

   As far as statues, Mr. Erdogan has not missed another opportunity to put his foot in his mouth it seems, but that is what politicans in heat do.  He is free to have opinions and tastes (I doubt) but what statesman makes such public comment?  None of his business of course, not that I am crazy about these statues abd it is in the eye of beholder but gesture itself is what matters in this case.

   I am all for full normalizations without any preconditions and blame AKP for dropping the ball, but extreme Armenian positions such as above, animosity of the diaspora, and total lack of any movement in Karabag issue are also to blame for the lack of progress here. After all, it takes two to tango.

8. Murat:   It takes two to tango, but one to slit the throat of the other. “Extreme” Armenian position, as you call it, but demand for justice, as we call it, is derived from Turkish failure to repent. “Animosity” of the Diaspora, as you call it, but righteous indignation of Armenians both in the Republic and the Diaspora, as we call it, is derived from Turkish denialism for their crime. And the issue of Artsakh (Karabakh) that pertains to Armenia’s relations with a third country has no relation whatsoever with the normalization of bilateral Turkish-Armenian relations. As for what you call “total denial of centuries of Armenian history” related to “What had the Ottoman Empire given the peoples under its yoke apart from massacres, tyranny, and plunder?”, for Armenians it’s a history of colonization. You’re making foolish statements because you are not at the receiving end of the nomadic Seljuks’ conquest of sedentary Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other peoples inhabiting Asia Minor. If you think Armenians exaggerate their “penthouse life” under the Ottomans, do some research and see with your own eyes that Armenians and other indigenous Christians were made rightless millets under the Ottomans. They were unbearably taxed; their witness accounts in the courts were outrightly disregarded; they were barred from the right to bear arms to defend themselves from the tyranny of the Turks; their villages were pillaged and plundered by attacking Turkish and Kurdish bands; their national liberation aspirations advanced by a few revolutionaries, not the entire 2-2.5 mln innocent people, were drown in blood by Bloody Sultan Abdul Hamid, and then the Ittihadist and Kemalist mass murderers in 1915-1923. If physical annihilation of the ancient races, cultures, civilizations is not barbarian, then what is it?

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