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Tatul Hakobyan

Bush Again Avoids Calling the "Mass Killings of As Many as 1.5 Million Armenians" Genocide

In his regular April 24 th message George W. Bush emphasized that the United States " remember[s] one of the horrible tragedies of the 20th century -- the mass killings and forced exile of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the final days of the Ottoman Empire in 1915." "This was a tragedy for all humanity and one that we and the world must never forget," the US president said.

In February 2000, in a meeting with the Armenian community of Michigan, presidential candidate George W. Bush promised that if elected he would call things by their proper names and would acknowledge the tragedy of the early 20 th century as the Armenian Genocide. However it has been six times now that he has broken his word and characterized the Genocide with euphemisms like "mass killing and forced deportations", "great calamity", "mass massacres", and so on.

"We praise the individuals in Armenia and Turkey who have sought to examine the historical events of this time with honesty and sensitivity.The analysis by the International Center for Transitional Justice, while not the final word, has made a significant contribution toward deepening our understanding of these events. We encourage dialogues, including through joint commissions, that strive for a shared understanding of these tragic events and move Armenia and Turkey towards normalized relations," the statement went on.

The political representative of the Bureau of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation/Dashnaksutyun (ARF), Kiro Manoyan, noted that compared to the statement made five years ago, President Bush's most recent message can to some extent be considered progress. "One of the disturbing moments is that the president has avoided using the word genocide, but it is also true that he has said quite a lot. As a matter of fact, the US president has presented the explanation of the crime of genocide without using the word. The Americans use the calling-or-not-calling it genocide as leverage, in other words they threaten the Turks with using the word genocide if they don't meet some specific requirements," Manoyan said.

Armenia's former Foreign Minister Alexander Arzoumanian (1996-1998) also expressed some displeasure that President Bush has not used the word genocide. "We expect the US presidents to call this monstrous crime by the name it deserves. But proceeding from its national interests, the United States doesn't find it appropriate. It is another matter that the formulations that have been used in the statements in recent years are, in fact, the classic definition of the crime of genocide without using the word itself," Arzoumanian said.

If Kiro Manoyan considered the passage in the Bush statement regarding the analysis by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) to be disturbing, Alexander Arzoumanian, in contrast, welcomed it. As is well known, the Armenian and Turkish members of Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) jointly requested the ICTJ to commission an objective and independent legal analysis regarding the applicability of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to events which occurred during the early twentieth century. The analysis commissioned by ICTJ concluded that the events of 1915 fit the definition of genocide. At the same time, the analysis stated that the Genocide Convention had no retroactive force and could not be applied to the events that had occurred before its adoption in 1948.

Kiro Manoyan stressed that the report attributed to ICTJ is a political document; it was approved by the members of TARC and, therefore, cannot be considered legal, since not all the members of the commission are lawyers and they approved a document that under of guise of a legal analysis would satisfy the both parties.

"In fact, an effort is being made to present the matter thus - yes, there was a genocide but Turkey will not bear any responsibility because the 1948 Genocide Convention has no retroactive force. In that sense the passage of the Bush statement that the ICTJ analysis is not the final word is correct. However, the mere fact of referring to the ICTJ is disturbing, for it can give occasion to new comments. In my opinion they have used the reference in order to have room for maneuvering - on the one hand it can be considered genocide, on the other hand the Convention is not applicable since it doesn't have a retroactive force."

But Alexander Arzoumanian, one of four Armenian founding members of TARC, welcomed that for the second time now President Bush has referred to the ICTJ report. "The fact of the Armenian Genocide has been indirectly recognized. As a result of extensive research and analysis, the ICTJ came to a legal conclusion that the events which occurred during the early twentieth century are genocide. It would be advisable that all Armenian organizations dealing with the Armenian Question put aside their personal ambitions and envy and, pointing to President Bush's reference to the ICTJ analysis, demand that this fact be considered yet another step in the affirmation of the Armenian Genocide by the executive power of the United States. Of course, the ICTJ is neither an international arbiter nor a court, and its analysis cannot be the final word. But this is the first instance in history when Armenians and Turks jointly appealed to an independent institution and when a legal analysis was carried out. As for retroactivity, it is commonly known that international law generally prohibits the retroactive application of treaties. But when commenting on the analysis one has to read it through carefully and to also take note of these specific reservations: 'We [the ICTJ] emphasize further that this memorandum addresses solely the applicability of the Genocide Convention to the Events. It does not purport to address the applicability to the Events of, or the rights or responsibilities of concerned individuals or entities under, any other rubric of international law or the laws of any nation,' and 'It is clear, from the text of the Convention and related documents and the travaux preparatoire s, that the term genocide may be applied to events that pre-dated the adoption of the Convention.' And one more thing - it would be ridiculous to consider the French Law on the Armenian Genocide to be invalid since not all the members of the French parliament are lawyers," Arzoumanian said.

Manoyan also noted that the ICTJ is just an NGO. To which Arzoumanian retorted, "The ICTJ is a well-respected organization. One should not forget that there are NGOs that sometimes dictate the rules of play. When any one out of 435 congressmen in the United States House of Representatives makes a positive remark about the Armenian Genocide to his or her local constituency, the ARF and others flood State TV broadcasts with reports on the good news."

The present Armenian government, which has since 1998 made the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide part of its foreign policy agenda, has for the first time publicly accused modern-day Turkey of the Armenian massacres. "Ottoman Turkey and its successor bear the full responsibility for this crime," reads the statement by President Robert Kocharyan on the occasion of the 91 st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. In the past, the Armenian authorities avoided publicly accusing the contemporary Turkey as well of implementing the first genocide of the twentieth century, preferring instead to emphasize the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire.

Ankara has so far left the accusations made by Yerevan unanswered. preferring instead to react to the US presidential message. Spokesman for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign affairs Namik Tann stated that it was not possible for Turkey to share some expressions of the U.S. President statement released on April 24 th .

Though Kiro Manoyan's and Alexander Arzoumanian's approaches are diametrical, which is understandable - the former represents ARF and the latter is from the Armenian National Movement (ANM), they are consonant on one point - President Kocharyan's response to the letter from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was correct.

Armenia's former Foreign Minister said, "The Erdogan letter suggested the creation of a joint commission of historians, which is unacceptable for the Armenian side since there is no single person in Armenia who calls in question the historical reality of the Genocide. Kocharyan's response that various issues might be discussed but not the purely historical ones was quite correct, and arose from the national interests of Armenia."

Manoyan noted, "In response to Erdogan's letter, President Kocharyan suggested a more inclusive dialogue, which, so far has been verbally rejected by the Turks. The Turks often try to disregard Kocharyan's reply and they openly lie, beginning with their foreign minister claiming that Erdogan's letter has been left unanswered, but in fact they have never responded in writing to Kocharyan's proposal to establish a more inclusive inter-governmental dialogue and, as far as I know, they have rejected it, disagreed with it verbally."

Some time around April 24 th of last year, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed that Ankara had received Robert Kocharyan's letter addressed to Recep Erdogan. Abdullah Gul said that the Turkish authorities would make a statement "only after it had carefully considered" the Armenian president's message. Thus, Ankara has been "carefully considering" the contents of Kocharyan's letter for more than a year now and has yet to reply to Yerevan. On April 26, 2005, President Kocharyan, in response to Erdogan's letter, proposed establishing without preconditions normal relations between the two countries. "The governments bear the responsibility for the development of bilateral relations and we should not leave it to historians," the Armenian president wrote.

Former Foreign Minister Arzoumanian is convinced that including the issue of the Armenian Genocide into the foreign policy of Armenia was wrong: "In fact, there are no Armenian-Turkish relations today at all. The issue has come to a dead-end. Both sides are to be blamed for that, both sides have become hostages to their public statements. Ankara and Yerevan have put forward preconditions for establishing normal relations. And Turkey not only doesn't renounce its preconditions, it adds more."

Alexander Arzoumanian maintains that putting Genocide recognition on the foreign policy agenda is a precondition. Yerevan's demand that Turkey be neutral in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is another precondition. It is a perfectly correct demand, but it is a precondition. Or the participation of Turkish forces in the peacekeeping operations in the Karabakh conflict zone, which, though inadmissible for the Armenian side, is also a precondition.

Kiro Manoyan, in contrast, maintains that including the issue of recognition into the foreign policy agenda is correct: "The policy of the former authorities of Armenia, i.e. negotiating with Turkey without preconditions and not including the recognition of the Genocide into the foreign policy agenda has yielded no results. The first government of Armenia did not make the recognition of the Genocide a foreign policy issue. I don't think they were not interested in Turkey's recognizing the Genocide, they simply wanted to believe or were convinced that not raising the issue for the time being would facilitate the establishment of Turkish-Armenians relations."

The political representative of the ARF Bureau believes that Armenia has sometimes done more than was necessary, but later on during negotiations it turned out that there was not much sense in negotiating with Turkey, because when the time comes for principled agreements Gul or other officials say, Excuse us but we cannot base ourselves on previous discussions. "And thus there is no need for further discussions. Through its negotiations at the level of Foreign Ministers, Turkey wishes to show the EU and to some extent the US that it is engaged in dialogue with Armenia and there is no need to exert pressure. But once Ankara got the timing for starting negotiations with the European Union, it was not interested anymore," Manoyan said.

The former foreign minister believes that there was a chance for improving Turkish-Armenian relations before the Iraq war, but it was missed. "For various reasons the situation had changed, the role of Turkey in the region had become more important. Today both sides are conducting myopic policy, and by putting forward preconditions are making the establishment of Turkish-Armenian relations impossible," Arzoumanian said.

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