In a series of secretly recorded phone conversations revealed last week, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was heard instructing his son to hide from police tens of millions of dollars of cash stashed in his Istanbul house.

This shocking revelation generated widespread calls for Erdogan’s resignation who claimed that the phone recordings are fake or edited. It appears, however, that the wiretapped conversations between the Prime Minister and his son are authentic, according to Guarded Risk, an American cyber company that conducted a comprehensive forensic analysis of the phone calls.

It is ironic that Erdogan who came to power as an Islamist with the declared aim of eliminating corruption from Turkish politics, has fallen victim to the dictum: “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely!”

The phone calls were secretly recorded on the day police raided the homes of several cabinet members, prominent businessmen, and the head of the state bank. They were all accused of involvement in bribery and other corrupt practices.

Here is the English translation of excerpts from Erdogan’s five wiretapped conversations with his son, Bilal:

Additional recordings have since surfaced in which Erdogan and his son talk about rejecting a $10 million bribe offer from a Turkish businessman for being insufficient.

Erdogan could end up losing not only his current position and the chance of becoming President later this year, but may also face prosecution and a lengthy jail term for his alleged crimes.

Foreshadowing next year’s Centennial commemorative events, the Armenian Genocide issue was discussed for the first time at the UN Security Council on January 29.

Armenia’s Ambassador Garen Nazarian, addressing the main topic of the Security Council session, ‘War, its Lessons, and the Search for a Permanent Peace,’ began his remarks with a subtle hint to Turkey on UN’s peacemaking role: “to forge a deeper reconciliation among peoples, based on a shared narrative and memory of a troubled past. Often this process entails more than simply adopting declarations and resolutions, visiting and laying down flowers at victims’ memorials or signing agreements or protocols and shaking hands. To be lasting, reconciliation may require the settling of the past, recognition and acceptance of responsibility for committed crimes.”

Regarding lessons learned from the Armenian Genocide, Amb. Nazarian specifically mentioned that the “reconciliation process could be delayed for decades or even generations. This was the first modern genocide perpetrated under the cover of the First World War.” Armenia’s representative went on to insist that “ending impunity for heinous mass atrocity crimes is vital for restoring justice and normalcy.”

Amb. Nazarian also outlined the steps necessary for proper reconciliation between nations: “successfully reconciled societies and nations usually undergo an extensive process of restoring justice, including reparations to victims and their heirs in order to re-establish their national dignity and identity. It is also imperative to speak with one voice against the distortion of history, the denial of historical crimes, and negationism.”

In his response, Turkey’s UN representative Halit Cevik, not surprisingly, focused on the future rather than his country’s bloody past. Without realizing that he was condemning his own country, the Turkish delegate insisted that “those responsible for the most serious crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, must be held accountable.” Amb. Cevik then went on to repeat his government’s worn-out denials, claiming that “allegations of genocide regarding the 1915 events have never been legally or historically substantiated. In this same vein, there is neither political nor legal consensus as to the nature of those events…. We believe that deriving animosity from history by trying to imprint on others an incriminating and one-sided view of the past, and calling for selective compassion, is not the proper way of respecting the memory of many Turks, Armenians, and others who lost their lives during the First World War. It is therefore important to face history in its entirety, and through impartial scientific examination of historical records and archives, so that the right lessons may be drawn from history and the common fair memory can be reached.”

Amb. Nazarian, in his right of reply, expressed deep regret to hear the Turkish representative’s “distorted explanations about the undeniable fact of the Armenian Genocide which took the lives of 1.5 million Armenian children, women and men living in the Ottoman Empire during the regime of Young Turks…. It began on April 24, 1915, and went on until 1923 — the systematic and planned slaughter of the entire nation.”

Describing in detail the deportations and massacres culminating in genocide, Amb. Nazarian asserted that “this crime has been recognized by a number of [UN] member states and international organizations, including the United Nations and its subsidiary body — the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.”

In a second reply to Amb. Nazarian, Turkey’s representative became more subtle in his denialism: “We did not say that nothing happened in 1915. These events do not fit in the description of genocide which was defined in the [UN] Convention of 1948. Now, an Armenian delegation is raising that the 1915 events are genocide in the absence of any resolution or any decision of the International Court. So how do you expect us…,” before he could finish his statement, his cell phone rang, interrupting him in mid-sentence.

It is very likely that more such confrontations will take place with Turkey leading up to the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. Turkish officials do not seem to realize that the more they deny and counter the Armenian activities, the more they help publicize the Genocide and the just demands of the Armenian people. Meanwhile, thanks to the Turkish delegation’s two responses to Amb. Nazarian statements, the Armenian Genocide was extensively discussed at the UN Security Council for the first time ever!

With the approaching Centennial of the Armenian Genocide in 2015, Turkish leaders are coming under increasing pressure from the international community to face their country’s sordid past and acknowledge the Genocide. Significantly, public statements regarding the Armenian Genocide were made in the last few days by heads of three European states: France, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

During his last month’s visit to Turkey, French President Francois Hollande, without using the genocide term, called on Turkish leaders to confront their history: “Memory work is always painful… but must be done. What we need is to carry out reconciliation through research and recognition of what has happened…. By recognizing the historical events you will be elevated not only in your own eyes, but also in the eyes of the world.” Pres. Hollande also held a private meeting with Rakel Dink, the widow of martyred Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Similar wise counsel was offered last week by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan: “Turkey must come to terms with its history.” Ironically, Erdogan was the one who brought up this issue by complaining that Germany was planning to allocate funds for the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide Centennial.

The President of the Czech Republic, Milos Zeman, went even further than the French and German leaders by actually using the term Armenian Genocide during Pres. Serzh Sargsyan’s visit to Prague two weeks ago: “Next year marks the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. In 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were killed.”

While international pressure on the Turkish government is expected to become progressively more intense with the approach of the Genocide Centennial, Armenians should be wary not to be misled by such well-meaning, but at times, self-serving statements. If such pressures would prompt a Turkish leader to admit the Ottoman government’s guilt in committing massacres or even genocide, that would be insufficient to satisfy the just demands of the Armenian people. In fact the raising of expectations for Turkish recognition could be counter-productive because if and when Turkey does acknowledge it, everyone including Armenians may wrongly assume that their long-anticipated objective has been realized!

Several decades ago, when the world was still unaware of the basic facts of the Armenian Genocide, its recognition by the international community and the Turkish government was imperative. However, at this stage, when over two dozen countries, many international organizations, and the International Association of Genocide Scholars have acknowledged the Armenian Genocide, mere recognition is no longer the ultimate goal.

Rather than recognition, Armenians and all people of goodwill now seek justice for the genocide committed by Ottoman Turkish leaders. Just as Germany paid compensation to Holocaust survivors, the government of Turkey, as successor to the Ottoman Empire, has to pay billions of dollars in restitution, and return the stolen Armenian properties and occupied lands.

To strive for restitutive justice, Armenians should use every possible means — political pressure, economic boycotts, public protests, and lawsuits — to convince Turkey’s leaders that they would be better off to negotiate with representatives of the Armenian government and Diaspora, seeking a just resolution for this long-lasting injustice. As there are considerable disparities between the political, economic and military capabilities of the two sides, Armenians may not be able to obtain all their demands overnight, but should insist that Turkish officials offer them as much restitution as possible in a phased manner towards eventual full justice.

The just settlement of the Armenian Genocide issue would have many benefits for Turkey which would be hailed by the international community as a progressive and civilized country. Its leaders may even be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recognition followed by restitution would also facilitate Turkey’s entry into the European Union. Otherwise, the continued refusal to come to terms with the Armenian Genocide would prolong the Turkish people’s embarrassing predicament of being constantly reminded of the crimes committed by their forefathers and continuously humiliated before the entire world as genocide denalists.

Should Turkish leaders have the courage to resolve their Armenian conundrum, the Armenian people would finally begin obtaining long-awaited compensation for their losses, enjoy an economically and geopolitically more viable and secure homeland, with the expectation that a repentant neighbor would be more inclined toward peaceful coexistence.

January 29, 2014

In a lengthy interview last week with Agence France Presse (AFP) on the tragic situation in Syria, Pres. Bashar al-Assad made an unexpected reference to the massacres of 1.5 million Armenians. This is the first time that any Syrian head of state has acknowledged the Armenian mass murders and identified the perpetrator as Ottoman Turkey.

During the interview, Pres. Assad compared the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to the brutal killings of civilians by foreign fighters nowadays in Syria: “The degree of savagery and inhumanity that the terrorists have reached reminds us of what happened in the Middle Ages in Europe over 500 years ago. In more recent modern times, it reminds us of the massacres perpetrated by the Ottomans against the Armenians when they killed a million and a half Armenians and half a million Orthodox Syriacs in Syria and in Turkish territory.”

Not surprisingly, two days later, Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, made a similar remark: “How about the Armenian Genocide where 1.5 million people were killed?”

The only other high ranking Syrian official who has acknowledged the Armenian Genocide was Abd al-Qader Qaddura, Speaker of the Syrian Parliament, when he inscribed a poignant statement in the Book of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide Monument and Museum in Yerevan on July 16, 2001: “As we visit the Memorial and Museum of the Genocide that the Armenian nation suffered in 1915, we stand in full admiration and respect in front of those heroes that faced death with courage and heroism. Their children and grandchildren continued after them to immortalize their courage and struggle…. With great respect we bow our heads in memory of the martyrs of the Armenian nation — our friends — and hail their ability for resoluteness and triumph. We will work together to liberate every human being from aggression and oppression.”

While the Parliament Speaker’s 2001 statement was a candid and heartfelt message with no political overtones, the same cannot be said about Pres. Assad’s words on the Armenian Genocide as he clearly intended to lash back at the Turkish government’s hostile actions against the Syrian regime. It is well known that Turkey has played a major role in the concerted international effort to topple Pres. Assad, by dispatching heavy weapons and arranging the infiltration of foreign radical Islamist fighters into Syria.

Relations between Syria and Turkey were not always hostile. Before the start of the Syrian crisis in 2011, the two countries were such close political and economic allies that the Assad regime banned the sale of books on the Armenian Genocide, and did not permit foreign film crews to visit Der Zor, the killing fields of thousands of Armenians during the Genocide. Mindful of possible Turkish backlash, Pres. Assad’s staff cancelled my courtesy meeting with the President in 2009 after they discovered on the internet my countless critical articles on Turkey. Moreover, during the honeymoon period between the Syrian and Turkish governments, Pres. Assad advised the visiting Catholicos Aram I that Armenians should maintain good relations with Turkey and not dwell on the past!

In his recent interview with AFP, Pres. Assad also complained about the failure of Western leaders to comprehend developments in the Middle East: “They are always very late in realizing things, sometimes even after the situation has been overtaken by a new reality that is completely different.” Frankly, one could make the same criticism about Pres. Assad for realizing at his own detriment only too late the dishonesty and duplicity of Turkey’s leadership.

Regrettably, the Syrian President is not the only head of state who has failed to decipher the scheming mindset of Turkey’s rulers. Countless Middle Eastern, European, and American leaders have made the same mistake, trusting Turkey’s feigned friendship, only to be let down when the time came for Turkey to keep its end of the bargain.

In recent months, with the increasing dissatisfaction of the international community with Prime Minister Erdogan’s autocratic policies and belligerent statements, it has become crystal clear that no one knows the true face of Turkey better than Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds, who have suffered countless brutalities, massacres and even genocide under despotic Turkish rule.

Despite Pres. Assad’s political motivations, Armenians should welcome his belated statement on the Armenian Genocide. After refraining from acknowledging the Genocide for all the wrong reasons for so long, at least now the Syrian President is on record telling the truth about past and present Turkish atrocities!

Peter Balakian, Professor of Humanities at Colgate University, recently wrote a thought-provoking commentary, titled: “A Broken Connection: The Armenian Financial Community and the Making of Culture.”

In his article, Balakian deplores the Armenian-American community’s failure to support a proposed Armenian Genocide

exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum, on the eve of the Genocide Centennial in 2015.

The exhibit, “The Shadow of Mount Ararat: The Armenian Genocide,” would have been in display not only at the Illinois Holocaust Museum — the second largest such institution in the United States — but also throughout the country, and possibly in Europe and South America.

Balakian expresses his disappointment that the Chicago Armenian community could not raise the necessary $600,000 to fund the project, resulting in the cancellation of the planned exhibit. In his view, this incident “reflects a larger failure of the Armenian community in the United States to create culture, by which I mean: to use financial means to conceive and engineer cultural production.” Balakian believes that Armenian-Americans “have almost nothing to show in the domain of cultural production and representation in the mainstream.” With few exceptions, “Armenians have created no mainstream cultural foundations, museums, [and] performing arts centers.”

Balakian complains that “the Armenian financial community has not been able to bring to fruition one feature film about the Armenian Genocide or other aspects of Armenian history.” He quotes a Jewish scholar who told him: “There seems to be a disconnect between the Armenian business community and the Armenian arts community; the business people don’t see that investing in the arts is investing in the core continuity of Armenian civilization. Investing in the community’s culture should be understood as a celebration of the life of Armenians past and present, something that the Turkish perpetrators tried to extinguish. This is certainly the philosophy of a lot of Jewish investment in Jewish arts. It’s a ‘f-you Hitler’ attitude.”

While I share Balakian’s concerns, I would like to express some additional thoughts regarding this important topic:

1)  Most Armenian benefactors prefer to contribute and attach their names to tangible brick and mortar projects like churches and schools rather than more abstract endeavors such as public relations and the arts. Yet, everyone should realize that wealthy Armenians are entitled to spend their hard-earned money as they see fit. It’s their money and they decide how to spend it!

2)  The needs of the Armenian Diaspora and the Armenian Republic are so massive that it is practically impossible for even generous benefactors to satisfy everyone’s demands.

3)  There are no established mechanisms to prioritize the community’s need and assess their merit. Benefactors and charitable organizations are bombarded with requests to fund movies, publications, artwork, aid to Armenia, monuments, memorials, churches, schools and orphanages. Few benefactors have the time and expertise to judge the quality and utility of the proposed projects in so many diverse fields.

4)  Projects are sometimes funded not on merit, but on the basis of the personal relationship between the donor and the recipient. It could boil down to who is doing the asking!

5)  Even though Armenians are quite generous in supporting their community organizations, the requests often outstrip the available funds. One cannot name a single category of needs that receives adequate funding, including social, cultural, religious, political, athletic, and humanitarian activities. Can anyone say that there are sufficient funds to:

— Print all the books that are worthy of publication?

— Digitize ancient manuscripts and other valuable archival materials before they are lost forever?

— Produce professionally-made movies and documentaries on the Armenian Genocide and other topics?

— Fund Genocide Centennial projects?

— Provide funds for electing political candidates who endorse Armenian issues?

— Support concerts, art exhibits, museums, medical, scientific, and countless other worthy projects?

— Meet the basic needs for the survival of Syrian Armenians, and the poor and needy in Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora?

Donors could certainly do more to support the seemingly endless needs of Armenians worldwide. However, a mechanism must first be established to prioritize the various needs, judge their merit, and make a professional presentation to potential donors. Finally, after the donation is made, periodic reports on the progress of the project must be given to the donor, demonstrating that the allocated funds are being properly spent to accomplish the promised objectives.