HyeOctane

Taking Grassroots Activism to the Next Level

Turkey misses its chance with Armenia

February 7th, 2007 by

By Vartan Oskanian minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia.
Ankara has let a rare moment pass. Three weeks after the assassination of acclaimed Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, it appears the Turkish authorities have grasped neither the message of Hrant’s life nor the significance of his death.

In the days immediately following Dink’s shocking death, allegedly at the hands of a fanatic Turkish nationalist, we in Armenia and others around the world wanted to believe that the outpouring of public grief would create a crack in the Turkish wall of denial and rejection, and that efforts would be made to chip away at the conditions that made the assassination possible. We all hoped that the gravity of this slaying and the breadth of the reaction would have compelled Turkey’s leaders to seize the moment and make a radical shift in the policies that sustain today’s dead-end situation.

However, after those initial hints at conciliation, the message out of Ankara has already changed. Last week, according to the Turkish media, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there can be no rapprochement with Armenians because Armenians still insist on talking about the genocide. [Read More]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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