Your trusted source

In what has become an almost annual exercise, Turkey has thrown a fit because someone has spoken the truth about its dark past, reads The New York Times editorial analyzing the consequences over the German Parliament recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the expected severe backlash from the Turkish side.

“That is what Turkey does every time a foreign government dares to challenge its discredited claim that the Armenians perished in the cruel fog of World War I, and not in a premeditated attempt to eradicate a people,” writes the paper adding:  “No, it was a genocide, the first of the 20th century. Historians have established beyond reasonable doubt that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were deliberately killed or sent on death marches in 1915-16 by the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, fearful that they and other Christian minorities could side with Russia in the war.

For Armenians, millions of whom were left scattered around the world, gaining recognition that the slaughter was a genocide — a deliberate atrocity, and not collateral damage — has been a long and passionate national mission, which has resulted in formal recognition by more than 20 countries.”

The paper next suggest that “Armenians are fully justified in their quest for a historical reckoning. But the more the world has recognized that, the more aggressively Turkey has stormed and shouted. A couple of years ago, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was still a relatively broad-minded prime minister, he seemed prepared to take a more conciliatory stance on the Armenian issue. It never happened, and the increasingly autocratic Mr. Erdogan warned Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, in advance that relations with Germany — “bilateral, diplomatic, economic, trade, political and military” — would be damaged by the resolution.

“Ms. Merkel was not present for the vote, though she did not oppose it. President Obama, who as a candidate in 2008 pledged to recognize the events of 1915 as a genocide, has failed to do so,” NYT says.

“The damage done to Turkey’s relations with the Armenians and its NATO allies is the responsibility of that large majority of Turks who refuse to acknowledge a dark blot on their history, not those who seek to commemorate the tragedy. The Germans, who have admirably confronted the terrible genocide in their own history, did the right thing in defying Mr. Erdogan’s threats,” concludes the newspaper