Turkey, the EU and the Armenian Genocide

There are many hurdles Turkey must overcome before it can think of joining the EU. One is the Armenian Genocide issue.

Armenians claim that over 1 million Armenians were systemically murdered by the Ottoman military in 1915. They, along with scholars from across many discipline, call these murders genocide.

Turks disagree. Some claim that “people were killed on both sides” and that what the Armenians suffered was not worse than what Turks suffered. Some claim that the Ottomans were justified in brutally ethnically cleansing Anatolia of Armenians because of the likelihood that the group would collude with advancing Russian troops. Most Turkish historians claim that not more than a few hundred thousand Armenians were actually killed in and around 1915. For a Turkish view on the subject read this article in the Turkish daily Hurriyet.

These claims are bunk.

 

Bush reaffirms support for Turkey’s EU bid

Bush once again made clear that he supports Turkey’s quest to join the European Union. He made his comments at the US-EU summit in Slovenia.

And, by the way, one subject we didn’t spend a lot of time on that I’d like to clarify the U.S. position on is, we strongly believe Turkey ought to be a member of the EU, and we appreciate Turkey’s record of democratic and free market reforms, and working to realize its EU aspirations.

Turkey’s democratic record appears to appeal to Bush. In recent months, Bush’s ardent belief in spreading democracy to Muslim countries has been confirmed by some very interesting leaked private conversations. And Scott McClellan.