Alex Christoforou
Late in the day Tuesday the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of adopting a historic resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. This, it should be noted, on the 96th anniversary of the founding of Turkey as a republic no less.
And in another major simultaneous “gift” to Turkey’s Erdogan — what headlines are already calling a “double whammy” — the House also voted overwhelmingly to approve a biting sanctions bill that if signed into law would crush Turkey’s economy and target Erdogan’s financial assets personally over his controversial military incursion into northern Syria.
Ankara has for years successfully lobbied against any such Congressional resolution on the 1915 Armenian genocide, treating it as an embarrassing and grievous wound to its reputation, also given the severe censorship within the country over this chapter in modern Turkey’s history.
It’s de facto illegal in Turkey to even acknowledge it, and over the past years multiple journalists, Armenians among them, have gone to jail for writing about the historic mass killings.
Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quick to condemn the resolution, H.R.296, dismissing it as a “delusion” of the “Armenian lobby and anti-Turkey groups” and further that it will only serve to damage future US-Turkey relations.
The measure recognizes the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish military forces of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. It also recognizes other Christian groups exterminated by Turkish Muslim forces, including “Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians,” according to the resolution’s text.
Campaign promise to dissolve NATO nearing fulfillment, and Trump doesn’t even have to have his fingerprints on it. The law of unintended consequences?
Well, his Syrian oil grab probably triggered the Danes to finally approve the Nord Stream 2 permit. Much more to come I’d wager, even expedited should a Democrat win the WH seat.
“Much more to come I’d wager, even expedited should a Democrat win the WH seat.”
Can you expand on this a bit? Are you saying that ending NATO is dem policy, or that the dems are so unable to see the consequences of their actions that there will be even more foreign policy ambiguity under a dem presidency? I’m not trying to be confrontational here, more trying to understand what you are driving at?
I totally 100% agree with the first part of your statement, but theres several ways the second part can be interpreted.
Your second choice, since the day the Dems move to end NATO is the day the Earth crashes into the Sun.
And PS: not ambiguity, ambitious machiavellinry.
Well, I’ll tell you what, if he withdrew the troops from NW Syria actually EXPECTING that the neo-liberals would be so intent on attacking him that they scuppered Turkeys membership in NATO as a way to get them to do the dirty work to dismantle NATO then THAT really IS “ambitious machiavellinry” of the highest order! Colour me impressed!
Considering how he used his mock “outrage” over the Kim Darraugh emails as a means of intimidating the UK Conservatives into choosing BoJo over Hunt, its not out of the question. THAT was some damned impressive “ambitious machiavellinry” in its own right!
So, when will they recognize the genocide of their staunch and most preferred nation allies, Ukrainian neo-nazi patriots and al Qaeda jihadis in Syria?
That’s very simple. When it serves their political agenda.