Turkey and Armenia have agreed to normalize ties between the nations
Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a framework to normalize ties after nearly a century of hostility, a move that could stabilize the volatile, oil-rich Caucasus but may affect European energy security plans.
The announcement, which was welcomed by Washington, came on the eve of the April 24 commemoration of mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915. The two countries have been engaged since last year in high-level talks to restore ties, which could include reopening a border closed in 1993…
Turkey and Armenia did not say how they would tackle the genocide dispute, which has traumatized ties. Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks but denies that up to 1.5 million died as a result of genocide.
Turkish officials would not discuss the issue further.
Americans generally are quick to demand that other nations “learn how to forget the past”. I’m as guilty of that as anyone else – especially over the impenetrable wall of hate that winds through the Balkans. I smirk over the same people who switch their brains off regarding the genocide our nation committed against Native Americans. Or what the real history of the Monroe Doctrine did to the fabric of life and death throughout Latin America.
Yet, the history of the Ottoman Empire in the eastern reaches of Europe and Asia is still part of the process of politics from Serbia to Afghanistan – perhaps more so than Colonial England’s imperialism, though, that may be a stretch.
It’s always easiest for the oppressor to “forgive and forget”.
