According to the Turkologist Hayk Gabrielyan, Erdoğan known for his vindictive character and ambition perceives the Bundestag decision as a “personal insult”.
– Mr. Gabrielyan, on June 2, the German Bundestag passed a historic decision. The resolution not only recognized the Armenian Genocide but also the leading country in Europe, which was the main ally of the Ottoman Empire during the World War I accepted its commitment to what happened. In your opinion as a political expert on Turkish affairs, what effect will this move have on Turkey’s domestic politics and social life? What developments should we expect in this context in short- and long-term perspectives?
– I do not expect a major impact of the Bundestag resolution on the domestic political life of Turkey. We saw that 3 of 4 forces represented in the Turkish parliament (AKP, CHP, MHP, which in parliamentary elections on November 1, 2015, had jointly gathered approximately 41.5 million votes) adopted a decision condemning the Bundestag resolution, which was expected. Today, the AKP and the MHP are competing with each other, directly and indirectly, to supplement to the most nationalist party of Turkey, and some people think that the AKP has already exceeded MHP in this matter, to the point, the CHP is the political party founded by the founder of Turkish Republican Party Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Various individuals involved in the process of the Armenian Genocide, one way or another, were enrolled in this party.
I also do not expect any significant impact on Turkey’s social life, given the censorship of mass media in Turkey, the anti-Armenian campaign at the state level and why not, the precedents of misleading the electorate easily (for example, many people believed the AKP’s suggested “either we or chaos” thesis in the November 1 elections and compared with the June 7 elections, the AKP received 5 million more votes and a chance to set up a one-party government).
Read also
Turkologist Hayk Gabrielyan
In short-term and medium-term perspectives, with regard to the expectations, I also predict a greater escalation in the relations between Germany and Turkey, I think that Erdoğan known for his vindictive character and ambition will perceive the Bundestag decision as a “personal insult”, that Germany had the courage to allow such a thing against the “New Turkey”. As CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has aptly pointed, the conflict will be escalated when the topic of the Armenian Genocide is found in the school textbook in Germany. There were already publications about all possible counter-moves of Turkey (search of “dark” pages in the history of Germany, some obstacles in the NATO mission in the Aegean Sea and the German aircraft in the “İncirlik” air base, the use of the Turkish community in Germany and refusal of submarines transaction).
It should be emphasized that Turkey does not have serious leverage against Germany. The more of less influential “trump card” of Turkey here are the refugees in its territory, whom Turkey is threatening to send to Europe but the EU has already developed the “B” plan to settle the refugees on the Greek islands in case such necessity arises. The adoption of the Bundestag resolution can greatly benefit to Armenia if necessary work is carried out in this direction. The matter is about the acknowledgment of its own complicity in the Armenian Genocide by Germany. The acknowledgement of the mistakes committed by imperialistic and Nazi Germanies, confrontation with them and voicing them enables the current and future Germany to more freely act in the foreign policy arena, run a more active foreign policy (currently, one of the main reasons for the absence of it and the restrictive factors is having such a (primarily, fascist) past, as well as having good trade and economic relations with many countries and the fact of not jeopardizing them).
We have seen that after the recognition of the Holocaust, Germany is greatly involved in the security of Israel, why not, also in ensuring its existence. Incidentally, it was manifested in different ways: by supply of weapons (including, confidential), deployment of Patriot missile attack complexes in Israel (for protection against missiles attacks from Iraq from the Persian Gulf during the first war), by some data, also for greatly funding the nuclear program of Israel (perhaps, few people doubt that Israel has a nuclear weapon).
Incidentally, we are witnessing the continuation of this policy of Germany also during the tenure of Merkel in office. Germany supplies Israel with the “Dolphin” class submarines that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads (1/3 of the money is paid by the Government of Germany). This allows Israel to use nuclear weapons if the country’s missile and air base are destroyed, this weapon of the “second strike” deprives the enemy of the opportunity to win the war against Israel due to the disastrous bombardments.
In this regard, German expert Hans Rühle had announced that the German leadership is guided by the desire to guarantee the security of Israel, and in recent years, Merkel’s government, for the same reasons, is extending the supply of similar submarines for Turkey having bad relations with Israel (the transaction was estimated 3.4 billion dollars, which is the 2nd largest transaction of the expansion of Turkey’s defense industry and the biggest of naval force of Turkey, after the transaction of purchasing 100 multi-functional destructives of F-35 type).
I think that based on this precedent, after the adoption of the resolution by the Bundestag, Germany must be engaged in the security of Armenia, expansion of defense industry, although, naturally, not to the extent as in the case of Israel, as in this case, Germany is not the genocidal country, nevertheless. The engagement in these issues by Germany in the case of Armenia may be manifested in the same form: supply of weapons and financing. The Armenian diaspora may act with such claims in the initial phase to create appropriate grounds and opinions and then Armenia will enter into the “game”.
One episode is remarkable here. We know that Germany has and refrains from sending weapons to the conflicting zone, and it can become a serious obstacle for assisting Armenia with weapons. As a solution to the question, I again see Israel as a precedent. When in 1960, the German press reported that Germany is supplying weapons to Israel and an uproar was raised, it was decided to break the contract in Germany on the grounds that it must not supply weapons to regional conflicting zones.
The issue was resolved when Israel (deputy defense minister Shimon Peres) objected it with the fact that the Germans must restore the historical injustice, which they had committed against the Jewish people rather than try to strengthen their own international position at the account of them, and agreements on supply of tanks, self-propelled artillery and submarines is of vital importance for Israel, and Germany should not view Israel only as a “regional conflicting part”, as the country constantly faces the threat of destruction by the dictatorial regime of Egypt.
I think that we can also raise the issue before the Germany from the same angle, reminding of the intimidations of the Azerbaijani authorities not only to Nagorno-Karabakh but also Armenia (including, on the part of Armenia), as well as expressing support to the statements made by the Turkish authorities), which indicate that Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh are truly in the struggle for survival, and the issue should be viewed from this angle. We must not forget that the 26th Chief of the General Staff of Turkey, İlker Başbuğ, (2008-2010) recently confessed that his greatest dream was the unification of Turkey and Azerbaijan. As they say, no comment.
– Turkey has published a roadmap to normalize the relations with Russia. What would you say about this?
– On November 24, 2015, Turkey downing Russian “Su-24” aircraft perhaps did not expect such a reaction from Russia, it was thinking that it can easily advance its thesis, that the incident was registered not at the Russian-Turkish but Turkish-Syrian border, that they did not know what the plane belonged to Russia. However, these were not accepted by Russia. Regarding this “unawareness” of the Turkish authorities, it should be noted that literally a few days after the downing of the “Su-24” aircraft, literally a few days ago, the Russian Ambassador to Ankara, Andrei Karlov, was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, where he had expressed discontent for shelling the Turkmens settlements in Syria by Russian aviation, and it was demanded to immediately put an end to these actions, intimidating that otherwise, serious consequences will be followed. It turns out that just a few days before the downing of the Russian aircraft, the Turkish side was able to distinguish whose country (Russia, Syria) aircraft is operating in the same territory, and a few days later, it has “not doubted” that it could be an aircraft belonging to Russia.
Although the drastic worsening of the relations between Russia and Turkey after the incident, Turkey actually wants to restore its close ties with Russia. In addition to restoring the economic relations, Turkey also benefits in the sense that the deterioration of relations with Russia significantly narrowed Turkey’s field to maneuver, demonstrating the fact of having an alternative, first of all, in the event of deteriorating relations with the US.
Russia also wants to restore its relations with Turkey, first of all, not to cast doubt on the implementation of the gas pipeline project “Turkish Stream”. In fact, the two countries are strongly willing to regulate the relations but as we all know, for normalizing the relations, Turkey must fulfill the three preconditions presented by Russia after the incident: to apologize, pay compensation and punish the perpetrators, which has created a stalemate situation that will still last longer (if the parties demonstrate consistency and do not make a step back).
Pertaining to apologizing, I do not think that such an arrogant, self-Sultan and Caliph imaginary person as Erdoğan is ready to take this step (at least, in the near future). It is the question of his image. In fact, Turkey (Ahmet Davutoglu) continues to be proud to be the only country that made Israel apologize. After such an apology by Turkey, it seems that the compensation payment will not be a problem, however, the example of Israel (after “Mavi Marmara” incident, for the normalization of the relations, Turkey has presented Israel 3 precondition: apology, compensation and lifting of the blockade of the Gaza section) showed that problems may arise in this regard. Incidentally, the problem here is not determining the size of the actual amount of compensation but the status of paying compensation. Israel demands the compensation be assessed as a voluntary act of compassion rather than a compensation for the damage for unlawful activity as required by Turkey.
As for Russia’s third demand, then here, it is perhaps about the intention to punish the one who gave the command to down the Russian aircraft rather than murderer of Russian pilot Oleg Peshkov who baled out from this aircraft (the alleged culprit is a Turkish citizen, currently in custody in Turkey, Alparslan Çelik who initially declared that he had killed Peshkov, but later he denied his words).
After the incident, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that he personally has given the order to down the border violating aircraft (according to Article 117 of the Constitution, General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces reports to the Prime Minister for his actions), then he denied his words, saying that the aircraft has violated the border by 17 seconds, and in the meantime, the soldiers could not establish contact with him and get a command to down the aircraft. I think that over time when Erdoğan will increasingly feel the need to normalize its relations with Russia, he will be even ready to sacrifice Davutoglu by making him a scapegoat in this matter.
EMMA GABRIELYAN
“Aravot”
21.06.2016
