Armenia: Criticism Ahead of Historic Football Match
Ahead of tomorrow’s match between Armenia and Turkey, as well as the arrival of Turkish President Abdullah Gul, nationalist forces in both countries are voicing their opposition to what others hope could be a long awaited breakthrough in relations between Yerevan and Ankara. On Tuesday, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) used the occasion of the 17th Anniversary of the declaration of Nagorno Karabakh’s independence to declare its intention to stage protests while its counterpart in the U.S. issued a statement.
On the occasion of the Sept. 6 visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to Armenia, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Western US Central Committee reaffirms the conviction of the organization and the entire Armenian-American community of the imperative for friendly and cooperative relations between Armenia and all of its bordering countries. At the same time, we assert the fact that Turkey still continues its 15-year blockade of Armenia, which has cost billions of dollars of damage to Armenia’s economy and prohibits its own citizens from freely traveling to Armenia. Furthermore, Turkey continues its domestic and international campaign of denying the Armenian Genocide. Turkey also continues to enforce its criminal codes against its own citizens who dare to accurately discuss the Armenian Genocide. Simply put, Turkey continues its efforts to elude justice.
Although the overall tone was moderate, its demands were expected from the party in the Diaspora — the return of territory once inhabited by ethnic Armenians and recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide as the basis for normalizing relations between the two countries. Although there are some differences between the local and foreign wings of the party, the ARF-D’s position as a whole is in stark contrast to that of the president and most other pro-governmental and opposition parties.
Nevertheless, RFE/RL reports that the ARF-D plan to go ahead with their protests when Gul arrives in Yerevan.
President Abdullah Gul will face protests the moment he arrives in Yerevan and hear calls for Turkey to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide during the football match which he is due to attend on Saturday, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) said on Thursday.
[…]
“There is so much bizarre enthusiasm surrounding all this at the social level that one might think we are to greet our missing brother,” complained Armen Rustamian, one of the party’s top leaders. He said Dashnaktsutyun will press ahead with the planned protests to show the world that Turkish-Armenian reconciliation is impossible without the recognition of the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
[…]
Rustamian added that Dashnaktsutyun leaders have discussed the planned actions with Sarkisian and that the president is not unhappy with them. “There is a full understanding on the issue between us and the president,” he said.
[…]
Gul’s upcoming visit has highlighted Dashnaktsutyun’s differences with Armenia’s long-running policy toward Turkey. Sarkisian and his predecessors have stood for an unconditional normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and reopening the land border between the two neighboring states.
Interestingly, the same article also says that the Armenian Football Federation had changed its emblem, but most Armenians appear oblivious to the politics of the match and view it merely as a sporting event. Even so, as of Wednesday, only 12,000 of the 53,000 tickets available for the match had been sold. Not sure many people know about the emblem change, however.
[…] Its new logo no longer depicts the biblical Mount Ararat, which is located in northeastern Turkey but is considered by many Armenians as their main national symbol.
The FFA insists that the emblem change was not politically motivated. But Rustamian cast doubt on the credibility of these assurances, saying that it would be “shameful” if the federation thereby tried to please the Turks.
Meanwhile, Gul is facing criticism in Turkey. Although RFE/RL notes that some Turkish newspapers have applauded the move, there is dissent from some political forces. Of course, the most vocal of that criticism came from Turkey’s own nationalist party, the MHP which called the visit “totally unjustified while the Turkish people are unjustly accused through lies of having committed genocide […]” Others, however, are more moderate.
Hasan Cemal of Milliyet newspaper proposed that a minute of silence be observed in the stadium before the match “in memory of the tragic page in our common history and the suffering experienced by the Armenians and Turks in the past”.
Photo: ARF-D activist burns Turkish flag during a Genocide memorial event, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian 2008
6 Comments
Jump to comment form | comments rss [?] | trackback uri [?]