Turkey in International Media

Turkey slams countries recognizing the Armenian genocide; increases isolation.
 
Turkey attacked its international allies for the way they described April 24, the day of the centennial commemorations of the wholesale slaughter of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Russia, France and Germany have all used the term genocide to describe those events but even the United States came under harsh criticism for its depiction of the tragedy. German President, Joachim Gauck has become the particular object of Turkey’s furore for his speech, for acknowledging his own country’s responsibility in the planning and implementation of the deportations. The Turkish Foreign Ministry responded that Turkey “won’t forget and won’t forgive Gauck’s remarks”.
 
However, the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel described Ankara’s bark as worse than its bite, given its dependence on its allies. That no ambassadors were summoned to the Foreign Ministry gives supports this analysis. Yet Turkish reliance on Russian gas did not prevent President Erdoğan’s from lashing out at his Russian counterpart, straining Turkish-Russian ties.
 
While Armenians commemorated the 100th anniversary of the genocide Turkey honoured the Gallipoli fallen.
The Turkish state marked its owned centennial, the victory in the Word War I at of Gallipoli. The celebrations this year bought high-level dignitaries, including Prince Charles of the United Kingdom, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his New Zealand counterpart John Key. However by rescheduling the event to the 24th April, Turkey prompted criticism for the obvious ploy of trying to distract the attention away from the Armenian centennial, according to Yetvart Danzikyan, the editor in chief of the Istanbul Armenian newspaper Agos.
 
Among the participants of the commemorations were The April 25 battle of Gallipoli — the first time that soldiers from Australia and New Zealand fought under their own flags and is seared in the national consciousness as emancipation from the British Empire.
 
International media tries to explain Turkey’s vehement denial of the word “genocide” and rebukes Obama for not using the G-word.
 
In a New York Times opinion piece Ronald Grigor Suny, professor of history and political science at the University of Michigan compares Turkey’s denial of its brutal history with other nations’ refusal to own up to atrocities. He lists Japan’s colonial annexation of Korea, Russia’s crimes under Stalin, Polish and Ukrainian anti-Semitic pogroms. The United States, Australia and Israel all expelled indigenous people from their territory. He praises Germany for dealing in an adequate manner with the genocide of Jewish people during World War II. Political scientist Burak Çopur, too, in his article in German weekly Zeit claims that Germany’s culture of remembrance and its historical refurbishment during the 1960s could serve as a role model for Turkey.
 
The papers grapple with the different reasons for Turkey’s vehement attitude in refusing to recognize the 1915 mass killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Peter Balakian in The Guardian and Burak Çopur in Zeit both argue that denial is even part of the foundational myth of the modern Turkish republic. The idea of an ethnically homogenous nation perforce leads to an exclusion of minorities like the Armenians from a Turkish self-image. Çopur adds that the idea of “Turkish-ness” is highly dependent on a religious identity of Sunni-Islam. An historical reappraisal would be a threat to the nation’s unity, so Armenians themselves are being blamed for the crimes against them. Another reason especially stressed by Scott Martelle at LA Times is Turkey’s fear of claims for reparation and reclamation of property and land brought by decedents of the victims.
 
Balakian describes Turkey’s centennial celebrations of the Battle of Galliopoli on April 24, the Armenian day of remembrance of the genocide, a strategic tactic of denial. At New York Times Suny argues that this cover-up allows the Turkish security apparatus to continue its violence against dissenting groups, like in the 2013 Gezi Park protests.
 
The authors agree that the Turkish government’s attitude lags far behind progressive forces in Turkey’s civil society which openly addressing the 1915 genocide. National intellectuals like Orhan Pamuk started a process of reappraisal by challenging the Turkish narrative, says Çopur. He describes a major change in Turkish civil society’s attitude from denial of the atrocities towards an acknowledgement of the Armenians’ suffering.
 
At LA Times Martelle voices his indignation about President Obama’s refusal to use the G-word. He calls Obama’s strategic choice not to offend Turkey an insult to the victims of the 1915 killings and an embarrassment for the world’s most powerful nation to be “muzzled” by an ally. Suny warns the US that not calling an historical fact by its name could give comfort to ultranationalist and anti-democratic forces within Turkey.
 
What happened ahead of the centenary commemorations:
-Ahead of the centenary commemorations Pope Francis fuelled the debate about the Turkey’s historical guilt labelling the mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians “the first genocide of the 20th century”.
-One day ahead of the commemorations Germany’s President Joachim Gauck condemned the 1915 massacres as genocide. He acknowledged Germany’s partial responsibility for the happenings because of German forces’ involvement in planning and implementing deportations.
-On Wednesday the Turkish Foreign Ministry expressed its outrage about a declaration of the Austrian parliament describing the committed crimes as genocide. This step “will have permanent negative effects on Turkey-Austria relations”, the ministry said in a statement.
-Despite President Obama’s previous  acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide , that the White House wouldn’t use the term  prompted “anger and disappointment.”
–Prime Minister Davutoğlu offered his condolence to the descendants of Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks. He avoided the term “genocide” and instead described the events as “legally and morally problematic”.
–Turkey’s top Muslim cleric calls Pope Francis “immoral” for labelling the 1915 slaughter of Armenians a genocide. He asked the Vatican to mind its own business considering Christianity’s own brutal past.
 
Election of moderate Mustafa Akinci gives hope for a solution to the Cyprus problem.
International media predicts the election of a moderate politician Mustafa Akıncı as leader of Turkish Cypriots will lead to a reconciliation with the Republic of Cyprus. The island has been divided since 1974 between South and North–  the EU-member, Republic of Cyprus and the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is  not just a united Cyprus that now become possible. Akıncı had already challenged Ankara’s high military, economic and political influence stating that he hopes for a more brotherly relationship with Turkey rather than a mother-daughter relationship. The Guardian interprets the election’s outcome as an expression of Turkish Cypriots unease with Turkey’s involvement in northern Cyprus.
 
Turkey tries to stop the flow of Turkish and Western jihadists towards Isis while starting the training of Syrian fighters.
 
Once again Turkish officials arrested British citizens suspected of heading towards Isis-controlled territory in Syria. A couple travelling with their four children, all aged under eight, were taken into custody on Monday, April 20 after they had been reported missing to Thames Valley Police on April 16.
On a visit to Washington, Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu addressed the problem of jihadists passing through the country calling Turkey a “transit country for foreign fighters”. He said that his government imposed an entry ban on 12,800 suspects and has already prevented 1,300 foreign fighters from reaching Syria. His US-American counterpart Kerry expressed support for Turkey and appealed to the jihadists’ countries of origin to dissuade young people from following Isis’s call.
 
Turkey does not just worry about jihadists from abroad. Analysts warn of a home-grown network of fighters, recruiters and facilitators in support of the Islamic State. Despite Turkey’s efforts to disrupt these networks, it risks becoming a target for retaliatory strikes.
 
This danger may be aggravated by a train-and-equip-program for Syrian opposition fighters. In spite of strong disagreements with the Obama administration over the program’s priority – whether to fight the Syrian military of Assad or militants of the Islamic State – Turkey will start the training of 200 Syrians next month.
 
Turkish authorities prevent the screening of a documentary about PKK at the Istanbul Film Festival.
The prohibition of the PKK documentary “North” (original title: Bakur) at the Istanbul Film Festival caused an uproar in social media and among Turkish film-makers. The screening of the documentary about the lives of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its armed wing, the People’s Defence Forces (HPG), was called off only a few hours before its premiere because of lacking a registration document, mandatory for all Turkish productions. The film was shot by film-maker Çayan Demirel and journalist Ertuğrul Mavioğluin in three different camps during summer 2013 when PKK and the Turkish government agreed a ceasefire and rebel leader Öcalan announced the withdrawal to Iraqi Kurdistan.
 
The prohibition at the festival caused an uproar among the film-makers with 23 of them withdrawing their pieces as an act of solidarity. A hundred film producers signed a declaration complaining about the government’s “oppression and censorship”. Minister of Culture, Ömer Çelik used Twitter to call the documentary propaganda for terrorism.
 
A pipeline with Russian gas through Turkey could foil EU’s plans of a centralized energy union.
In order to free itself from the dependency on Russian gas, the European Union is considering the establishment of an energy union with the authority to bargain a single price for all European countries. With the help of Turkey the Russian government and Gazprom hopes to disrupt this plan. Russia plan to pipe gas to Europe through Turkey, and no longer depend on Ukraine as a transit country.
 
The new Turkey Stream project could carry Russia’s natural gas to the Turkish-Greece boarder and continue into Europe replacing the South Stream project, which was supposed to supply south-eastern Europe via Bulgaria. This was cancelled by Russia after the conflicts in Ukraine. Hungary, Greece, Serbia, and Macedonia, all heavily reliant on Russian gas, have already expressed their approval of Turkey Stream.