Raising the stakes in Turkey's rejection of the genocide label by US and Swedish lawmakers for the mass deaths of Armenians a century ago, Turkey says it might send home up to 100,000 Armenians currently living in Turkey without citizenship. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, angry over the decision earlier this month by a US congressional committee and by the Swedish parliament to call the 1915 deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians a "genocide," has said the issue could disrupt a nascent Turkey-Armenia reconciliation process started last year.Mr. Erdogan is now unlikely to attend an energy summit hosted by Barack Obama in April, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Erdogan already pulled out of a top-level meeting in Sweden, and Turkey withdrew ambassadors from both Washington and Stockholm after the two votes.The issue of deaths during the expulsion of Christian Armenians by forces of the crumbling Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I are sensitive in Turkey, which argues that killing took place on both sides.More broadly, NATO member and European Union candidate Turkey does not want to be lumped with Nazi Germany, Cambodia, or Rwanda as perpetrators of genocide in the 20th century.
Raising the stakes in Turkey's rejection of the genocide label by US and Swedish lawmakers for the mass deaths of Armenians a century ago, Turkey says it might send home up to 100,000 Armenians currently living in Turkey without citizenship.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, angry over the decision earlier this month by a US congressional committee and by the Swedish parliament to call the 1915 deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians a "genocide," has said the issue could disrupt a nascent Turkey-Armenia reconciliation process started last year.
Mr. Erdogan is now unlikely to attend an energy summit hosted by Barack Obama in April, Hurriyet newspaper reported. Erdogan already pulled out of a top-level meeting in Sweden, and Turkey withdrew ambassadors from both Washington and Stockholm after the two votes.
The issue of deaths during the expulsion of Christian Armenians by forces of the crumbling Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I are sensitive in Turkey, which argues that killing took place on both sides.
More broadly, NATO member and European Union candidate Turkey does not want to be lumped with Nazi Germany, Cambodia, or Rwanda as perpetrators of genocide in the 20th century.
Would be cool media, no? A circle of elders and chiefs, and in the middle, Obama, letting the elders know he's grateful they survived, and he wishes to learn something about stewardship. Akwego Skennah. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
