TARC SPLITS US ARMENIANS

[MosJan]

TARC SPLITS US ARMENIANS

In an interview with the daily Azg the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Kenneth Hachikian said: “ Actually we do not have any information about the circumstances which were behind the formation of the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission, as all those people involved in it, provide vague and ambiguous comments. We know at this moment that the US State Department, contrary to its assurances that it was not involved in the creation of the TARC, provided financial assistance to promote TARC activity. I think we shall learn much more about the volume of US government’s involvement in it. In response to ANCA questions, the State Department answered that the assistance had been given to TARC as an alternative to the inclusion of the Armenian genocide issue on the Congress’ agenda.”

 

 

The news about TARC first appeared in the New York Times which wrote in a July issue that the Commission members were having secret talks since the issue of the Armenian genocide was put on Congress agenda. Until October 2, when a report by the Congressional Research Center disclosed that financial aid was given to the TARC through the channels of the US University for Conflict Solutions in Washington, the State Department officials had been categorically denying the US government’s involvement in it.

 

 

“The TARC has split the US Armenian community, which seems to be what Turkey and US desire. The majority of US Armenians have voiced their opposition to the TARC, however, the creation of the Commission has brought in a lot of controversies in the community,” Kenneth Hachikian said.

 

 

In response to the daily Azg question whether the approval of the Commission by the official Ankara was pursuing the goal of using it as a tool in Turkey’s efforts against international recognition of the genocide, Hachikian said: “ The US State Department evidently thinks so and I believe that this opinion was formed as a result of close cooperation between the State Department and senior officials from Turkish foreign ministry. Last week a European Union subcommittee changed its attitude towards Turkey’s accession to EU. In the past one of the preconditions for Turkey to enter the EU was recognition of the Armenian genocide. Creation of the TARC was cited by an EU senior official as a factor for the change of the EU attitude towards Turkey’s accession. Former US ambassador to Armenia Michael Lemmon used to say that the issue of the Armenian genocide would not be put on Congress agenda this year. I also used to ask myself why he was thinking so.”

 

 

ANCA is one of the two, along the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), major US Armenian organizations, having numerous chapters in all communities throughout the USA. Andranik Mihranian, an independent Russian Armenian political analyst and a member of the TARC, recently described the AAA as an “organization having serious ties with the State Department.”

 

 

By the way, some sources close to the AAA claim that the organization supports the idea that the “issue of the Armenian genocide should be left to historians,” contrary to the approach of the ANCA, which makes Armenian-Turkish dialogue conditional on Turkey’s acknowledgment of the genocide, lifting of Armenia’s blockade and giving up its pro-Azerbaijani stance in the issue of Nagorno Karabagh conflict.

 

 

Some senior members of the ANCA recall that in 1992 Hrair Hovnanian, the chairman of AAA Board of Trustees said during a reception in White House that “the Armenian genocide is not a political issue and should be left to historians.”

 

 

In 1996 the AAA did not make any attempt to help support a Radanovich-Boneur amendment calling for reduction of US aid to Turkey, unless the latter recognized the Armenian genocide. Some sources close to the ANCA say that in 2000 July 12 several senior members of the AAA had met with House of Representatives Spokesman Dennis Hastert to discuss “ why the issue of the Armenian genocide should not be put on Congress agenda.”

 

 

By Tatool Hakobian from New York

 

© Copyright AZG

[khodja]

In retrospect, Armenians will see that the Clinton-Gore Administration was a much more conducive environment for cultivating Armenian civil rights worldwide than the present administration. A Genocide Resolution came very close to passage last year. Politics and economics usually prevail over religious and cultural ties. For a Republican administration fused at the hip with the military-industrial complex and with the top dogs having sprung from the brow of the oil industry, an insignificant Chtristian country in the middle of an Islamic sea means nothing. (you can see that for a Democrat, I have read the memoirs of of Eisenhower and respect the man). This war will not last forever. In peacetime, will the Armenians ever see the light or will we continue to perpetuate knee-jerk conservative ways, thus helping to propel the more conservative members of the Republicans into office?