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Ambassador Namik Tan won’t return to U.S

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World news roundup: Turkish ambassador won’t return to U.S. just yet

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

TURKEY

Washington Post

Envoy recalled over ‘genocide’ vote stays put

Turkey will not send its ambassador back to Washington until the Obama administration and Congress make it clear that they will not judge Turkish history, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Tuesday.

The country recalled its envoy, Namik Tan, last month after the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution labeling Turkey’s killings of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

“We cannot accept the judgment of members of the foreign relations committee, who do not know anything about the history,” Davutoglu said in an interview in Ankara.

Davutoglu set two conditions for Tan’s return: The administration and Congress must show they will refrain from deciding what he called “our history,” and the countries “should agree to develop our strategic alliance,” he said.

As a Muslim NATO member and a close U.S. ally, Turkey is crucial to efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and develop Iraq. President Obama visited the country almost a year ago and has broken a campaign pledge to refer to the 1915 killings as “genocide” so as not to impede reconciliation talks between Armenia and Turkey, which have since stalled.

Turkish officials are waiting to see how Obama will phrase a statement April 24, the anniversary of the start of the massacre.


— Janine Zacharia


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Aylin D. Miller

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Comments

One response to “Ambassador Namik Tan won’t return to U.S”

  1. mok10501 Avatar
    mok10501

    This is may be a right decision but for wrong reason. Why are we acting like a third-world emirate or like a banana republic? Why on earth we do not have a firm policy as to what should be our response if anyone recognizes this so-called “genocide” lies, but act based reactionary forces and randomly? Like this one, ” let see how Mr. X will call it on this next week” attitude. Let them think about as to what to say or not to say. Nobody wants to be labeled as “Who lost the Turkey?” We cannot run the modern Turkey like a tribal establishment. We should have prepared those outcomes and execute our policies calmly and quietly. Turkey should not run like a Russian-Roulette, randomly. Instead of jumping up and down and by crying as to “how US can do this to us?”, we should prepare an equivalent response as we feel appropriate when it requires. This type of behavior is not appropriate for us and it is degrading.Don’t we know what our ancestors said ? “The dog who is going to bite do not show teeth”. Unless, of course, if we are trying to peek up sympathies of wrong doers to us and use that for gains in internal politics. Everybody should know very clearly that if they recognize those lies they break ties with our Republic and we should have a retaliation equivalent to that act accordingly. Not based on reactionary politics by keeping or sending back our Ambassadors back and ford like a child game. If we were serious about this, we shouldn’t even sign the protocols with Armenia and especially in Switzerland which they’ve already recognized the “genocide” and prosecuted our citizens who disagreed with that decision. Why did not we pull our Ambassador from Switzerland, but instead thanked them for their hospitality? Why our government ignored that fact and vent to Switzerland? Was our Kissinger dealing with the Syrian-Israeli conflict at the time? If we are using issues for internal political gains, we are certainly damaging our respect and our leaders would be treated like bluffers.

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