Turkey's Erdogan threatens to expel Armenian immigrants

18/03/2010

Parliamentary resolutions describing wartime massacres of Armenians as a genocide have prompted a sharp reaction by Ankara.

(Zaman, EurActiv, The Times, Wall Street Journal, The Irish Times - 18/03/10; Hurriyet, AP, Reuters, DPA, BBC, RFE/RL, Telegraph - 17/03/10)

"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday (March 16th). [Getty Images]

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians working in Turkey could face expulsions if foreign parliaments continue to pass resolutions describing the World War I-era massacres of Armenians as genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned this week.

Only 70,000 out of the 170,000 ethnic Armenians living in Turkey are Turkish citizens, he told the BBC on Tuesday (March 16th) while on a brief working visit to London.

"We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000," the leader of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) said. "Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary, because they are not my citizens. I don't have to keep them in my country."

His statement came five days after the Swedish parliament adopted a resolution by the narrowest possible margin, calling the 1915 massacre of about 1.5 million Armenians a genocide.

A similar non-binding resolution was endorsed by a 23-22 vote in the US House Foreign Affairs Committee a week earlier and is now likely to be put to a vote in the full House, despite the White House's stated opposition to the measure.

Acknowledging that the passage of the document on March 4th was a setback for Washington's relations with Ankara, US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon said on Wednesday that the administration cannot block its approval.

"Congress is an independent body, and they are going to do what they decide to do," he told reporters.

Angered by the passage of the two documents, Ankara immediately recalled its ambassadors to Stockholm and Washington for consultations.

Turkey acknowledges that thousands of Armenians were killed in the country during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, but attributes it to interethnic fighting during a period of overall turmoil. It also maintains that the number of victims is exaggerated.

Describing the US and Swedish lawmakers' approval of the genocide resolutions as a "show", Erdogan accused the influential Armenian diaspora in the United States and Western Europe of being behind such moves.

He also warned that the US committee and the Swedish parliament's resolutions could have a negative impact on his country's efforts to normalise relations with neighbouring Armenia.

"We are committed to a zero-problem policy, but there is nothing we can do if the other side clenches its fist while we extend a hand," Turkish daily Zaman quoted Erdogan as saying.

Condemning his Turkish counterpart's deportation threats, Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian stressed on Wednesday that political statements of this kind "do not contribute to the improvement of relations".

Erdogan's warnings about the possible expulsion of Armenian immigrants prompted harsh criticism from civil society groups in Turkey, as well, which described them as discriminatory and unacceptable.

"These remarks could lead some people to think that to expel people is a 2010 version of forced migration," Zaman quoted Ozturk Turkdogan, chairman of the Human Rights Association, as saying. "There are many Turkish workers all over the world; does it mean that Turkey will accept their expulsion when there is an international problem?"