“The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory.”Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary
Special to the Washington Post
Sunday, September 19, 2010; 8:05 PM
VAN, TURKEY – An event that many had hoped would be a watershed on the road to the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia became instead a source of controversy Sunday when Turkish authorities failed to place a cross atop a newly renovated church in time for a highly anticipated service.
Hundreds of Armenians gathered at the 10th-century Holy Cross Church near Van, a city close to Turkey’s border with Iran, for the first religious service there since the mass killings of Armenians in 1915. The event, at a site considered sacred by many Armenians, was seen as a symbolic gesture by Turkey to mend relations with Armenia. Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the reopening of the church “an expression of Turks’ tolerance.”
But the absence of the cross – and the bitter reaction it prompted – reflect just how tenuous relations between the two nations remain. The church is considered a historical building, and any additions require government approval. Turkish officials said the cross was too heavy and that the church’s dome would not support it.
The green light for the service was given earlier this year during a period of rapprochement between Turkey, which is mostly Muslim, and predominantly Christian Armenia. Turkish-Armenian relations had picked up after a round of what was called “football diplomacy,” with the two countries’ presidents attending friendly matches between the Turkish and Armenian national soccer teams. Those efforts culminated in the announcement of the Turkey-Armenia Protocols last year, but the agreement never took effect. Each side blamed the other for adding new conditions to the deal, resulting in the failure of either nation’s parliament to ratify it.
Services at the church, which has been turned into a museum, are generally not allowed. But when Turkey agreed to open the church for services once a year, many saw the gesture as a small but important step in addressing a historic wrong. Armenians claim that 1.5 million people were killed in an act of genocide between 1915 and 1917. The Turkish government acknowledges that thousands of Armenians were killed, but denies that the events constituted a genocide.
“It might mean more recognition of the historical past,” said Howard Atesian of Detroit, who was among a group of Armenian Americans who came to Turkey to see their ancestral land.
But not all Armenians saw the ceremony as an honest effort by Turkey. Even before the cross controversy led some tour groups to cancel their visit to the church, Armenian commentators labeled the occasion a publicity stunt. The Turkish invitation to prayer at the church was seen as a way for Turkey to score points with the European Union, which has been pressuring the country to grant more freedom to its minorities.
Concerns that Turkey was using the event to gain international favor and the outrage over the missing cross sparked protests in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.
“It was sad but still beautiful,” said Mari Esgici, an Armenian restaurant owner, of Sunday’s service. “At least the young ones got to see this happen.”
WMR has discovered a formerly Secret document from the U.S. Department of State that confirms the United States not only supported the Turkish military coup that ousted the nation’s democratically-elected government in 1980 but actively supported the military-imposed Turkish Constitution as “reformist.”
The citizens of Turkey recently voted in a referendum and approved 26 constitutional amendments that will transform Turkey into a democratic state without the threat of the military and national security state-affiliated judiciary trumping the power of the Parliament and the people. Neocons have condemned the referendum as a threat to secularism in Turkey and a move to an Islamic state. However, the neocons and their allies in Israel are concerned that a Mossad -and CIA-imposed Turkish “Deep State” has finally seen its power largely destroyed with the impending adoption of a new Turkish Constitution. The referendum, which passed with 58 percent of the vote, is a victory for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Many of the roots of the creation of the most recent variant of the Turkish Deep State, known as Ergenekon, can be seen in the State Department policy paper dated September 5, 1981, and titled “USG Policy toward Turkey.” When the State Department document was drafted, Turkey’s military junta leader, General Kenan Evren, was drafting the present Turkish Constitution. The 1981 Turkish military draft Constitution’s “reforms” were referred to in the State Department policy document’s author Lawrence Eagleburger, the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs: “It is too early to judge whether the fundamental GOT reforms, now in place or in prospect, will succeed.” The document also talks about the “relief” provided to the United States by the 1980 military coup: “The military takeover of September 1980 brought temporary relief and for the moment broke the back of radical movements — including pro-Islamic ones — which had come to the fore in the 1970s.”
Eagleburger signaled his and the Reagan administration’s support for the Turkish junta because of the same bogus reasons that neocons today criticize the Erdogan government: the bogeyman of Turkish Islamic political power. Eagleburger warned that Turkey could “drift away from NATO and Western-style government; alignment with Middle East states which supply oil and markets; possibly even neutralism growing out of accommodations with the USSR.” Today, the neocons, Israelis, and their Ergenekon allies in Turkey argue the same points in demonizing the Turkish government: that Turkey is drifting from NATO, that it is turning to oil suppliers and markets like Iran, and has a growing relationship with Russia.
Eagleburger then outlines how the Reagan administration would cement U.S. ties with Turkey to prevent the above scenarios from being realized. He writes: “ . . . the Turkish-American relationship has no natural constituency in terms of shared history, economic interdependence, ethic or family ties. The absence of a ‘Turkish lobby’ in the United States is indicative.” Two of the recipients of the Eagleburger document would later help fill the void and help create the American Turkish Council (ATC), a lobby group patterned after their friends at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Those two recipients of the Eagleburger document were Richard Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, and Paul Wolfowitz, Director of Policy Planning at the State Department. Other recipients of the Eagleburger policy document on Turkey included Robert Hormats, the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs [and who is now the Undersecretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs under Hillary Clinton]; Ronald Spiers, the director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1977 to 1980; and the prospective U.S. ambassador to Pakistan; Richard Burt, the Director of Politico-Military Affairs for the State Department; and Nicholas Veliotes, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs.
The nature of the bilateral U.S.-Turkish relations were described as a “best effort” to help Turkey in all respects, including an “understanding” of Turkey’s position in Greek-Turkish issues and dealing with “Armenian terrorism.” In 1981, Armenia was a constituent republic of the USSR. Today, it is “Kurdish terrorism” that plagues Turkey since Armenia is now an independent state with a natural and politically-powerful constituency in the United States. The Eagleburger document describes the Evren junta as perceiving the Reagan administration as making a “best effort” in providing financial support to Turkey from Washington’s “weighing in” on the “International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Saudis, and other potential donors.”
Eagleburger also warns of “nettlesome” issues that could adversely affect U.S. relations with the Turkish junta, for example, “Congressional badgering on Cyprus, on relations with Greece, on the pace of return to democracy, and an Armenian niche in the proposed Holocaust Museum.”
The United States, through an alliance with Israel and its influence peddlers in Washington, would ensure that the Turkish pace of democracywould not return to normal until the recent approval by the Turkish people of a new constitution that will eradicate the Turkish junta’s military “reforms” championed by Eagleburger and his band of proto-neocons in the Reagan administration in 1981. Attempts over the past eight years by Ergenekon to overthrow the AKP government failed and with the new constitutional changes, Ergenekon’s and Israel’s ability to influence events in Turkish politics have been curtailed,save for the continuing threat of covert Israeli provocation of terrorism involving the Kurds.
Turkish Hurriyet newspaper wrote that Armenian diaspora has launched a campaign of attack for recognition of so called Armenian genocide.
Armenian diaspora in Boston has laid the foundations of ‘Armenian Heritage Park’ yesterday. The park will include a monument for so called Armenian genocide. Armenian diaspora representatives had previously asked for permission to the state officials and the request of Armenians was accepted despite the reaction of Turkish-American community.
In France Armenian descent Deputy Mayor of Marseilles, Didier Parakyan initiated a petition for recognition of a resolution that proposes penalization of the denial of Armenian allegations regarding 1915 incidents.
Hurriyet also wrote that if left wing politic party wins the elections that will be held in the weekend, “genocide monuments” will probably be evoked in Sweden.
By Hj Pravitz, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, 23 April, 1917
Hj Pravitz takes a deeper look at the statements that had previously been made by Mrs. Marika Stjernstedt, in Nya Dagligt Allehanda, a Swedish Newspaper published in the period 1859-1944.
By Hj Pravitz, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, 23 April, 1917
Hj Pravitz takes a deeper look at the statements that had previously been made by Mrs. Marika Stjernstedt, in Nya Dagligt Allehanda, a Swedish Newspaper published in the period 1859-1944.
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“Recently returned home from abroad I have right now – i.e. somewhat late – had the opportunity to look at two Swedish booklets on the Armenian issue. “Sven Hedin – adelsman” [Sven Hedin a nobility], by Ossiannilsson and “Armeniernas fruktansvärda läge” [the terrible situation of the Armenians], by Marika Stjernstedt. The former book went immediately in the waste basket. In all its poorly hidden appreciation of the title character, it annoyed me more than a main article in Dagens Nyheter. The latter, which seemed spirited by the compassion for the suffering Armenians, I have read repeatedly, and it is really this and its inaccuracies that my article is about.
I dare to claim, that hardly any other Swede has had the opportunity like me, to thoroughly and closely study the misery among the Armenians, since I now for about a month have traveled right among all the emigrating poor people. And this, during the right time, fall 1915, during which the alleged brutalities, according to both writers, were particularly bad.
I want to hope, that what I am describing below, which are my own experiences, will have the purpose to remove the impression of inhumanity and barbarity from the Turkish and German side, which is easily induced by the reading of the two booklets mentioned above.
If I understand the contents of the books correctly, both writers want to burden the Turks as well as the Germans with deliberate assaults or even cruelties.
My position as an imbedded eyewitness gives me the right and duty to protest against such claims, and the following, based on my experiences, will support and strengthen this protest.
Despite the fact that I was and am such a pronounced friend of Germany and its allies, which is consistent with the position of a servant of a neutral country, I started my journey from Konstantinopel (Istanbul) through the Asian Turkey, with a certain prejudiced point of view, partly received from American travelers, about the persecution of the Armenians by their Turkish masters. My Lord, which misery I would see, and to which cruelties I would be a witness! And although my long service in the Orient has not convinced me that the Armenians, despite their Christianity, are any of God’s best children, I decided to keep my eyes open to see for myself to which extent the rumors about Turkish assaults are true and the nameless victims were telling the truth.
I sure got to view misery, but planned cruelties? Absolutely nothing.
This is precisely why it has appeared to me to be necessary to speak up.
To start with, it is unavoidable to state, that a transfer of the unreliable Armenian elements from the northern parts of the Ottoman Empire to the south was done by the Turkish government due to compulsory reasons.
It should have been particularly important to remove, from the Erzeroum district, all these settlers, who only waited for a Russian invasion to join the invading army against the hated local legal authority. When Erzeroum fell in February 1916, an Armenian, with whom I just shared Russian imprisonment, uttered something I interpreted as ‘It would have fallen way earlier if we had been allowed to stay.’ That a country like Turkey, threatened and attacked by powerful external enemies, is trying to secure itself against cunning internal enemies, no one should be able to blame her.
I think it points to a misconception when one claims that the Armenians are living under the uninterrupted distress of some sort of Turkish slavery. There are peoples that have it worse. Or what about Indian Kulis and Bengalis under British rule, and the Persian nationalists in Azerbaijan under the Russians’ – “penetration pacificue”, and the Negroes in Belgian Congo, and the Indians in the Kautschuk district in French Guyana. All these, not to mention many others, seem to me, are victimized to a higher degree and more permanently than the Armenians. I guess technically, one can say that a longer lasting but milder persecution is less bearable to endure than a bloody but quick act of despotism, as in (Ottoman) assaults of the kind that from time to time put Europe’s attention on the Armenian issue. Apart from these periodical so-called massacres, the reason of which could to a large degree be ascribed to the Armenians themselves, I do think that the (Armenians) are treated reasonably well.
The (Armenians) have their own religion, their own language, both in speaking and writing, their own schools etc.
As far as the much discussed major Armenian migration is concerned, I am the first to agree that the attempts of the Turkish side to reduce the difficulties of the refugees left a lot to be desired. But I emphasize again, in the name of fairness, that considering the difficult situation in which Turkey, as the target of attack from three powerful enemies, was in and it was, in my opinion, almost impossible for the Turks, under these circumstances, to have been able to keep up an orderly assistance activity.
I have seen these poor refugees, or “emigrants”, to use Tanin’s words, seen them closely. I have seen them in the trains in Anatolia, in oxen wagons in Konia and elsewhere, by foot in uncountable numbers up in the Taurus mountains, in camps in Tarsus and Adana, in Aleppo, in Deir-el-Zor and Ana.
I have seen dying and dead along the roads – but among hundreds of thousands there must, of course, occur casualties. I have seen childrens’ corpses, shredded to pieces by jackals, and pitiful individuals stretch their bony arms with piercing screams of “ekmek” (bread).
But I have never seen direct Turkish assaults against the ones hit by destiny. A single time I saw a Turkish gendarme in passing hit a couple of slow moving people with his whip; but similar things have happened to me in Russia, without me complaining, not then, nor later.
In Konia, there lived a French woman, Madame Soulie, with family and an Italian maid. They lived there, despite the war, and the Turks did them no harm. And as far as the Germans stationed in the town are concerned, she called them ‘our angels.’ ‘They give all they have to the Armenians!.’ Such evidence of German readiness to sacrifice I established everywhere the Germans were.
In Aleppo, I lived by the Armenian Baron, the owner of a large hotel. He did not tell me about any Turkish cruelties, although we talked a lot about the situation of his fellow citizens. We also talked about Djemal Pasha, who would come the day after and with whom I would meet. Baron expressed himself very positively about this man, who by the way, least of all seemed like an executioner.
In Aleppo, I hired an Armenian servant, who then during a couple of months was my daily company. Not a word has he told me about Turkish cruelties, neither in Aleppo nor in his home town of Marash or elsewhere. I must unconditionally believe in exaggerations from Mrs. Stjernstedt’s side and I do not put one bit of confidence in the Armenian authorities she claims to refer to.
On page 44, Mrs. Stjernstedt writes about (the town of) Meskene and an Armenian doctor Turoyan. I was in Meskene right when he was supposed to have been there. I looked carefully around everywhere for historical landmarks, since Alexander the great crossed the Euphrates (river) here, and the old testament also talks about this place. There was not a sign of Armenian graves and not of any Armenians either, except for my just mentioned servant. I consider Mr. Turayan’s evidence very questionable, and I even dare to doubt that this man, if he exists, was ever there during the mentioned time. If the conditions in Meskene really were as he claims, will anyone then believe that the suspicious Turks would have sent an Armenian up there with a “mission from the government”?
For fourteen days, I followed the Euphrates; it is completely out of the question that I during this time would not have seen at least some of the Armenian corpses that, according to Mrs. Stjernstedt’s statements, should have drifted along the river en masse at that time. A travel companion of mine, Dr. Schacht, was also travelling along the river. He also had nothing to tell when we later met in Baghdad.
In summary, I think that Mrs. Stjernstedt, somewhat uncritically, has accepted the hair-raising stories from more or less biased sources, which formed the basis for her lecture.
By this, I do not want to deny the bad situation for the Armenians, which probably can motivate the collection initialized by Mrs. Stjernstedt.
But I do want to, as far as it can be considered to be within the powers of an eyewitness, deny that the regular Turkish gendarme forces, who supervised the transports, are guilty of any cruelties.
Later on, in a different format, I want to impartially and neutrally like now treat the Armenian issue, but at the moment, may the adduced be enough.
On August 15 this year, a remarkable event took place at Soumela monastery in northeastern Turkey in the beautiful wooded valleys that the Greeks call the Pontus. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople celebrated the first service in the ruined monastery since 1923, the year when the Pontic Greeks were deported from their homeland.
It took many years of quiet diplomacy by church officials, non-governmental activists, mayors and—an important group in this rapprochement—musicians, for Greeks and Turks to bridge their differences sufficiently to let the Soumela service take place. An American photographer of Pontic Greek origin, Eleftherios (“Ted”) Kostans was in the church and wrote me his impressions:
There were a couple of stand-out moments I thoroughly enjoyed. One being the Patriarch’s speeches in Greek and Turkish. He was both eloquent and considerate of all peoples, in a way that made reminded us, we are all human first. The second wonderful moment was quite thrilling for me as Greek and as a Pontian. When the Patriarch walked through the crowed inside the Soumela walls carrying his staff I was just a few steps away and could see him gazing the walls. The smell of frescoes and priests singing suddenly came together for me. Silence hit the room for a moment and suddenly the crowed yelled, “Axios! Axios! Axios!” [the Greek word for ‘Worthy’]……It came from all directions as the crowed closed in around the Patriarch….Wow! For me, that was the climactic moment. Not just for the day. But symbolically, it represented the return to Pontus and announced officially that yes we are Pontians and this is our homeland.
Only a year before I was with Eleftherios outside the monastery walls on August 15, the Feast of the Virgin Day, when it all went badly wrong and a Turkish museum curator broke up what she declared to be an unauthorized service.
This year’s breakthrough was clearly authorized at the top, another move in the tentative “Christian opening” made by the governing AK Party, as it challenges some of the desiccated doctrines of the Turkish state. Plenty of powerful nationalist forces vehemently opposed the service as an invitation to “Christian fifth columnists” to infiltrate a Turkish state musuem. But now a precedent has been set, hopefully the Soumela liturgy will become an annual event.
None of this can be said a parallel service planned for September 19: the first liturgy for more than 90 years in the 10th century Armenian church of Akhtamar on Lake Van. The Armenian patriarch of Istanbul is due to officiate in what would again be a historic event—Armenians’ return to a place that from which they were bloodily driven out in 1915. Thousands of Armenians are due to visit, with many of them staying in ordinary Turkish homes.
Unfortunately, unlike Soumela, the Akhtamar service is threatening to turn into a disaster. Armenian officials and clergy are saying they will not come because the Turkish government has not carried through on its promise to reinstall a cross on the monastery dome. The government, currently locked in a fight over the September 12 constitutional referendum, is doing nothing to correct this.
I understand the concerns of some Armenians who won’t go to Akhatmar. They want to see rapprochement with Turkey, but they believe that the church service is a distraction from the political business that the Turkish government flunked when it failed to press ahead with ratifying the Protocols on normalizing relations, signed last year in Zurich.
But some Armenians are going much further, denouncing the whole event and calling for a boycott. One commentator called the liturgy a “scandalous show” and Armenians who are going there “tools of Turkish propaganda.” These people, who oppose any incremental changes with Turkey and demand nothing less than a full Turkish government apology for committing Genocide in 1915 are in a curious way the allies of the Turkish nationalists who oppose rapprochement for opposite reasons. If the Akhtamar service is a failure, it will be a blow against those liberal Turks, such as the governor of Van province and in the presidential administration, who are still pushing for normalization with Armenia.
I am certain of two things: There will eventually be a breakthrough in Armenian-Turkish relations. And when it happens, both Armenians and Turks will say things about the other and about the past that they are not saying now. The issue is all in the timing and how to build enough mutual trust to stiffen the resolve of the leaders who will do the final deal.
The Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Erdogan offered Bono to hold his interfaith event in Istanbul while refusing crosses on churches and operating number of sacred Christian places in the country as museums, including the Hagia Sofia temple in Istanbul.
Well-known and famous Irish rock-band U2 frontrunner Bono was hosted in Istanbul yesterday, as part of their worldwide tour. Turkish Prime-Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the chance to offer the rock idоl holding an interfaith event in Istanbul as an effort, once again, to show-off the tolerance and European face of Turkey. The initial aim is to bring the three religions together – Islam, Christianity and Judaism. If in the official rhetoric the ruling elite of Turkey is always ready to mislead the public opinion, the real deeds are somewhat showing the true reality. And the reality these days is the whole story around the Armenian issue.
It may seem for an average European that religious freedom issues are high in the agenda of Turkey, amid even the upcoming constitutional referendum on September 12. Recently a Greek church in a Turkish province has been opened up for a one-day-a-year liturgy. The same is on the agenda with Armenians – as the Akhtamar Church of the Holy Cross (Surp Hach – in Arm.) is scheduled to host a liturgy on September 19.
Turkey repoens 10th century Armenian church as a museum, allows worship only once a year.
The Holy Cross church – a 1,100-year-old standing monument of Armenian heritage in those lands sacred with Armenian blood during the Genocide years, was re-opened as a museum in 2007 – as a message to the Armenians and the international community that Turkey had heartfelt sentiments towards its Armenian minority, and is ready to continue behind-the-scene talks on normalization with Yerevan. However, the church was then opened as a museum since the incumbent government refused to install a cross on the dome, and the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul has not been able to consecrate it as a church up to now. One more controversy comes into mind as the church still remains under the authorities of Van province and not the Patriarchate – as other religious monuments.
Nowadays a new show-like developments happening in Turkey with regards to the upcoming liturgy in the church. Last week the government announced that they were not able to install the cross, despite earlier assurances of the opposite. Immediately, the Holy See of Echmiadzin suspended its earlier decision to send two high-level churchmen to the event. Before the distressing news came from Turkey, the attending/ignoring debate in Armenia and elsewhere in Armenian Diaspora hit the ceiling with both pro and cons sentiments and statements. One of the prominent Diaspora public figures said that the event is scheduled “to exploit this event for propaganda purposes”.
Despite all the criticism towards Erdogan, he continues to feed the show. Even considering the obvious failure of the much-spoken and widely advertised democratic initiative and the Kurdish opening, AKP government doesn’t want to acknowledge that half-steps are good only for short-time show-offs, but evidently not sufficient for securing long-term and sustainable achievements. For instance, the Kurdish opening, that was largely supported by the international community now turned out to another wave of repressions and mass arrests of Kurds in Eastern provinces of Turkey.
Whatever it is – but the Turkish “show must go on”. The government uses all the available chances to speak up and voice their readiness of phony tolerance. No chance is to be missed. The only issue is that international community, and Armenians worldwide, were very timely to acknowledge these false and misleading half-steps. Now Armenians returning their earlier purchased tickets to Turkey, as the RFE/RL reported last week. The much-anticipated 5000-ish tourist-boom and a much more follow-up in eastern provinces of modern Turkey is now questioned. The trade union of Van voiced their readiness to help improving the situation, but Armenians are rightfully firm on their initial will of having the cross on top the church.
After all, the next morning of September 19, we will have an unchanged Turkey that is accused by the international community – Russian, Europeans and Americans – for destroying the Armenian-Turkish rapprochement and other openings that were the key-arguments of Gul/Erdogan/Davudoglu triplet. Unfortunately, another chance is now being missed.
Written by Hovhannes Nikoghosyan
Mr. Nikoghosyan is a research fellow at Yerevan-based Public Policy Institute.
WMR has discovered a 
