Cengiz Aktar: Turkey will be liberated if it faces up to the truth of

[PaperBoy]

Not many borders are closed in our globalized world, but the frontier between Armenia and Turkey is still a dead zone where the railroad stops, Thomas de Waal writes in ...

 

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[Moushegh]

Aktar initiated an Internet petition apologizing for the "Great Catastrophe" of 1915 (adopting the Armenians' own phrase for the tragedy) and expressing sympathy for "my Armenian brothers and sisters."

More than 30,000 Turks have signed it -- remarkable for a country whose schoolbooks were, until recently, saying that Armenians killed Turks in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire and not the other way around. It is not an easy process, but the taboo on discussing the issue of what happened to the missing Armenians has now been lifted in Turkey.

 

Last October, the Armenian and Turkish presidents, Serzh Sargsyan and Abdullah Gul, moved to sign two protocols on normalizing relations, pledging that, once the documents were ratified by their countries' parliaments, the closed border would open within two months. Six months on, insecurities and local politics are again winning the day, and the protocols are in trouble. Turkish leaders are postponing ratification of the agreements, the source says.

 

“What has gone wrong? Ankara has gone cool on the process, saying it wants to see progress on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh -- even though the conflict is not mentioned in the protocols. The Turks clearly did not expect the furious reaction the rapprochement would have with Azerbaijan. The latter has been lobbying hard and effectively against the protocols, and its fears are understandable -- it is worried that if the Armenia-Turkey border opens, a key lever of influence on the Armenians to make concessions over Nagorno-Karabakh will be lost,” the columnist writes.

 

 

 

 

 

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A baby step in the right direction, but a step nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

"Great Catastrophe?"

Politics be damned! Lets call a spade a spade, it was GENOCIDE!

 

 

The Turkish government owes it's people an explanation and admission of the truth about the crimes which were committed in their history. Turks cannot continue any longer to go on living a lie if they are to ever move forward and become whole, they must face the truth and initiate a meaningful resolution. The Genocide of Armenians is a wound for modern day Turks which will continue to eat away at them until they come to terms with the truth.