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3 décembre 2007

The discussions on the genocide, which take place in Switzerland, are very striking. As it is known, the unilateral decision taken in Vaud canton in October 2003 (the Bill of Massimo Sandri), upset Turkey who steadily repeats its calls for researching the events objectively and caused a crisis between Turkey and Switzerland.

Nevertheless, the fact that the head of Turkish History Institution and then a leader of the political party are prosecuted due to their advocating the opposite views in the speeches they made in Switzerland, had repercussions in Turkey and also in the world and these upsetting developments relating to the restriction of the free thinking resulted in reactions.

As a matter of fact, such reactions go on incessantly by shocking the Armenians who draw support from the unilateral and politically supported interpretations of history and have great expectations from the lobby activities for the future ; because an absolute U-turn take places in the policy of Switzerland. Even the political statements that are given by the News Agency of Switzerland on August 6, 2005, reflect the Swiss tendency who does not favor the unilateral scenarios. Peter Breiner, head of the Senate Commission of Foreign Policy and also head of the Foreign Policy of Assembly of Cantons, makes clear statements about this historical issue still being discussed and says that : “this issue regards rather the concerned sides, namely Turkey and Armenia. Also, pointing Turkey with finger after 90 years is not the business of other countries”.

On the other side, the view of Briner, which favors “to research the discussed events by forming a commission of history” and supports entirely the call of Turkey, evokes the message of G.W.Bush on April 24, 2005 and also puts emphasis on the “historical” and forgotten dimension of the event. In a sense, Switzerland stresses that the platform where the historical events to be discussed is not the parliaments of the countries.

The developments in Switzerland also indicate that the propaganda activities of great scale of the Armenian diaspora, which tries in every occasion to keep on the agenda the rhetoric of genocide in order to get some political gains, will be reduced half and half and will be entirely removed from the agenda by time. On the other hand, this “unusual” development, which caused the reaction of the Armenian extremists, also increases the courage of the Turkish researchers to declare their theses supported by the archives to the public. It is considered as certain that the reliability of the Armenian claims will be severely damaged thanks to the archival documents that are revealed by the new findings and refute greatly the Armenian theses.

From another point, it is salient that the Turkish authorities deny the claims of the Armenians saying that “the Turkish archives are closed”. The Turkish side declares that the archives have been open to the researchers for years and that the claims saying that the archives are closed are the lies stemming from the fact that no information to support the unhistorical theses has been revealed. They refer to the archives of the Dashnak committee in Armenia and the USA, which are not still researched.

Briefly, Briner’s words show the need for a scientific methodology that requires this historical issue between Turkey and Armenia to be dealt under the responsibility of both sides.

Derya Kent

deryakent@yahoo.com
deryakent@mynet.com