Survivors of the Armenian genocide listen to the speeches on Oct. 10 from representatives of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a measure that would recognize the First World War-era killings of Armenians as a genocide.
(Washington Post/Linda Davidson/Associated Press)

Rarely credited for astute observations, U.S. President George W. Bush offered one of his more insightful remarks during a press conference last month: "With all these pressing responsibilities, one thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire."

The president's incisive statement came a week after a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill stating, "The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923."

In the 90 years since the beginning of the disputed genocide in which at least hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could not have chosen a more inopportune moment to sort through the detritus of the First World War.

After having failed to hold the Bush administration accountable on the Iraq war as promised, Pelosi, who represents a sizeable Armenian community in her home district, seems to have been trying to score a quick two-pronged political victory, presumably oblivious of any unintended consequences.

With the president's Iraqi "surge" strategy finally winning over Washington skeptics, the White House could not afford to vilify the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, which also happens to be a key U.S. ally in Iraq.

NATO's sole Muslim member

Despite its refusal to allow U.S. forces passage into northern Iraq during the 2003 invasion, Turkey, NATO's sole Muslim member, is one of only a handful of close U.S. allies in an increasingly hostile Middle East and is critical to America's War on Terror: U.S. planes flying sorties to Iraq and Afghanistan pass through Turkish airspace and three-quarters of air cargo destined for Iraq passes through Turkey's Incilik airbase.

After warning of the serious harm such a public indictment would inflict upon U.S.-Turkish relations, Ankara quickly recalled its ambassador, as Bush set out to prevent the bill from reaching the House floor. Staving off a diplomatic incident, the White House marshalled all eight surviving secretaries of state to edify Congress regarding its lapse in judgment. The sentiment on Capital Hill promptly tilted against the bill, the logic being that it would alienate NATO's second-largest military (after the U.S., of course) without saving a single Armenian life.

Congress's flirtation with the genocide label has similarly allowed Turkey's domestic politics to distort an already skewed foreign policy. On the same day as Bush's castigation of Congress, the Turkish parliament gave authorization for a large-scale incursion into northern Iraq to remove the guerrilla forces of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). If such an operation were carried out, it would give Iraq the dubious distinction of being invaded not once but twice in five years.

The Kurdish question

Turkey has long struggled with its identity and, by extension, the minorities it inherited from the multiethnic Ottoman Empire. The Armenian Genocide notwithstanding, the Ottoman's Kurdish legacy has been the most irksome thorn in Turkey's side. Long thought of as simply Mountain Turks rather than a distinct culture, Ankara brutally suppressed its Kurdish communities (currently representing almost 20 per cent of the population) in the name of building a cohesive nation state. The mass arrests and torture of Kurdish dissidents led to the eventual rise of the Marxist PKK, which fought to unite the 25 million Kurds scattered across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) have made headway in resolving the country's Kurdish question, which has taken 40,000 lives, according to Turkish records. Enjoying political and cultural rights for the first time, Turkish Kurds are now less inclined to demand autonomy than they once were.

Such concessions, analysts believe, are what may be behind the spike in PKK violence in recent months: 48 Turkish soldiers were killed in October alone. An increasingly marginalized PKK is thought to be goading Ankara into responding with the brutal scorched-earth campaign it has used in the past, which would bring new relevance to the organization labelled by the U.S. as a terrorist group and swell its ranks.

A second reason is thought to be the success of Iraqi Kurdistan's armed struggle for independence since the 1991 Gulf War. This stable and prospering, U.S.-sponsored enclave has spurred neighbouring Kurdish communities to seek more autonomy and also provides a mountainous safe haven from which PKK forces can torment Turkey's southeast.

America's success in northern Iraq has placed it in the unenviable (and arguably hypocritical) position of urging a political ally to refrain from taking unilateral action against a government thought to support terrorism. Turkish patience is wearing thin as America fails to follow through on its pledge to pursue both terrorists and the governments that harbour them, in this instance the PKK and the government of Iraq's Kurdish region, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) of Masoud Barzani.

Loath to incur the political costs of pursing fellow Kurds at the behest of Turkey and the U.S., Barzani suspects Turkey has grand designs on the whole of oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, as opposed to wanting only to disrupt PKK operations.

A frenzy of Turkish nationalism and anti-American sentiment, along with a marginalized military suspicious of the AKP's Islamist intentions and apparent U.S. indifference toward Turkey's historic and contemporary concerns have pushed Erdogan into taking a hard line against PKK intransigence, hence the parliamentary vote granting the authority to launch cross-border operations.

Iraqi stability

Fearing that any large-scale incursion could destabilize the only bit of Iraq that has been peaceful and increasingly prosperous, to say nothing of the wider region, Bush met with his Turkish counterpart in Washington earlier this month, urging restraint. Erdogan, in no rush to find himself mired in a quagmire of his own making, has opted in favour of economic sanctions on northern Iraq and limited Turkish military action co-ordinated with U.S. and KDP forces.

However, continued PKK attacks paired with perceived U.S. apathy could further stoke domestic pressure, forcing Erdogan to let loose the 100,000 troops, backed by warplanes, helicopters and tanks amassed along the border.

While winter weather in northern Iraq's Kandil Mountains will limit military options in the coming months, when the snows do melt it can only be hoped that cooler heads continue to prevail.

Letters

This article is a perfect example of why ideologues should not opine on international affairs. First, the argument is that the genocide should not be recognized because it might offend Turkey and they will no longer assist the US to illegally occupy and subjugate Iraq.

Secondly, the PKK is responsible for irking Ankara and therefore is also responsible for the Turkish army's brutal repression of the Kurds. The PKK like all redundant socialist/terrorist organizations has done this so that they can regain their influence in Kurdish politics.

Of course the sole raison d'etre of the PKK has been to stay centre stage and to keep the Kurds from following their illustrious enterprising kin to the south who indcidentaly suffer repression and economic and political peripheralization at the hands of their own tribal leaders, very similar to the circumstances of ordinary Afghanis after usurption of power by the Afghan Northern Alliance.

– Paul Edwards | Ontario

It would be more professional if he addressed both views on what's so called "Armenian genocide". I am from Karabakh in Azerbaijan and have witnessed massacre of Azerbaijanis by Armenians just some 15 years ago. "Armenian Genocide" is a myth, and is being used as a political tool that's brought up everytime, and is also being used to mask Armenia's invasion of 20% of Azerbaijani lands, and massacre of Azerbaijanis by them just less than two decades ago.

It's rather unfortunate that Alim Remtulla failed to state that 3 million Turks were also killed 90 years ago. Turkish PM has announced that Turkish Ottoman archives are open, has asked Armenia and any other third country to open their archives for a joint historical research on this controversial issue. Unfortunately, to date, Armenians have failed to answer the Turkish government's request.

It's shame that those politicians sitting in parliament seats, including Canadian MPs, rewrite history for bunch of Armenian votes. It's what the historians should do, not the politicians. And the jobs of journalists like Alim Remtulla himself is to point out views of both sides and refrain taking biased stance on such controversial issues.

It's also not very nice of such a respected company like CBC to publish such biased articles on its website, and we hope that in future CBC and its journalists will take a more objective stance on historical issues. Thank you.

– Emin I | Toronto