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Garbis: Armenians React To 'Failing' Turkish-Israeli Relations

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  • Garbis: Armenians React To 'Failing' Turkish-Israeli Relations

    GARBIS: ARMENIANS REACT TO 'FAILING' TURKISH-ISRAELI RELATIONS
    Christian Garbis

    Armenian Weekly
    Fri, Jul 9 2010

    With recent news reports about renewed efforts to have official
    resolutions recognizing the genocide passed by the U.S. Congress-with
    the support of Jewish interest groups-and even in the Knesset, Yerevan
    Armenians are trying to make sense of the changing political tide in
    the region.

    One school of thought is that in both U.S. and Israeli lawmaking
    bodies, the resolution will be put to a vote will not pass-although
    by a slim margin in an attempt to scare Turkey. As a result, economic
    and diplomatic ties will begin to strengthen once again.

    On the surface this seems unlikely, however, given Ankara's recent
    efforts to step up its relations with Tehran. On June 9, Turkey refused
    to vote in favor of UN-sponsored sanctions against Iran for pursuing
    its nuclear program. The refusal slighted the U.S., yet diplomatic
    relations between the two countries remain largely unaffected.

    "The Jews have their own interests to look after first of all,"
    said Shahan Ounjian of Beirut, Lebanon, who is the proprietor of a
    Yerevan tavern called Pub Che. "When did the Armenians ever factor
    into those interests?"

    "The Jews are playing cards, and now they're supposedly trying to play
    the Armenian hand by using genocide recognition to get at the Turks,"
    he added." But a resolution recognizing the genocide won't pass
    [in the Knesset]. Relations between Turkey and Israel won't worsen."

    Some Armenians believe that although bad blood is circulating as a
    result of the flotilla incident of May 30, during which nine people
    were killed when Israeli forces squashed a Turkish-initiated relief
    effort to help the people of Gaza, long-term Turkish-Israeli relations
    will not be indefinitely hampered. Rather, the incident was used as
    a way for Turkey to increase its span of influence in the Middle East.

    On June 2, Alexander Iskandaryan, the director of the Caucasus
    Institute, said in a press conference that the strain in relations
    between Turkey and Israel was not new, but the level that it has
    reached was.

    "It's necessary to spoil relations with Israel in order to play
    a greater role in the Middle East. It fits into the framework of
    Turkish-Israeli and Turkish-Iraqi relations," he said.

    On June 3, the head of the National New Conservative Movement, Edward
    Apramyan, was quoted by the Armenian press as stating that the Armenian
    Genocide recognition issue would only become a "matter of speculation."

    "What's happening in Turkish-Israeli relations now had been planned
    two to three years ago," he said.

    The president of the Constitutional Right Union, Hayk Babukhanyan,
    said in a news conference on June 4 that the situation Turkey has
    found itself in is a coincidence, and that all those who believe the
    country has somehow changed as a consequence of the flotilla incident
    are naive.

    "How can Turkey demand an apology from another country, when Turkey
    itself has been refusing to apologize for its evils in the course of 95
    years?" he said. "How can Turkey call another country an aggressor,
    when it has conquered part of Cyprus? Turkey is guided by double
    standards, and Europe and the UN accept the rules of this game."




    From: A. Papazian
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