A few days ago, in Marseille, Serzh Sargsyan, the President of the Republic of Armenia, speaking of Turkey, perceiving herself a European country, said that one day the leadership of that country would confess for committing the Genocide of Armenians. The President made an example of Willy Brandt, the German Chancellor who, realizing the serious crime committed by his country, dropped to his knees in the Warsaw Ghetto. Let me remind that the Ghetto was established inWarsawin 1940 by Nazi Germans, after occupyingPoland. During 2, 5 years of the Ghetto existence more than 400 thousand people were killed or died from starvation and diseases. On December 7, 1970, German Chancellor Willy Brandt, after signing an agreement of normalizing the relations between his country andPoland, went to the former Ghetto to lay a wreath. During the ceremony, he suddenly dropped to his knees and stood motionless for a few minutes. Afterwards he wrote, “I did what people do when words fail them. In this way I commemorated millions of murdered people.” Why did Brandt do such a thing? Did he love Jews very much? Did he enjoy confessing? No, he did so neither for Jews, nor for personal satisfaction. The Chancellor did that exceptionally for his country,Germany, because he realized that without that confession his country would not advance. One can confidently say that thanks to Willy Brandt’s sensible policyGermanyadvanced rapidly and is now one of the most powerful countries inEuropein terms of economy and politics. Let us now see what a Turkish official said about confessing and dropping to knees (according to tert.am), “Let nobody doubt, we know how to destroy all the negative actions against the nation… Nobody will venture to bringTurkeyto her knees.” Let me remind that it was said not by a member of a marginal nationalist group, but… Egemen Bağış, the minister for EU Affairs of Turkey, referring to Serzh Sargsyan’s statement. The fact that he did not understand or pretends not to understand what the President of theRepublicofArmeniaspeaks of testifies thatTurkeyis very far fromEuropeand EU.
To be frank, it is rather like the response of our former officials when one urges them to speak of their previous sins, “What? Speak of your sins first!”
ARAMABRAHAMYAN
