Turkey’s president steps into row

By Delphine Strauss in Ankara

Published: December 18 2008 23:37 | Last updated: December 18 2008 23:37

Turkey’s president Abdullah Gul intervened on Thursday to defuse an explosive debate over a campaign by Turkish writers apologising for the massacres of ethnic Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman empire.

More than 13,000 people have added their names to the website www.ozurdiliyoruz (“we apologise”) launched on Monday by a group of intellectuals, in a sign of changing attitudes to one of the most sensitive episodes in Turkey’s past.

But on Thursday, new visitors to the site found they could no longer sign up. Technicians in charge of the website claimed to have traced the blockage to an IP address at the interior ministry that was sending millions of clicks a minute to put the site out of action – raising the possibility that state officials have struck back on their own initiative.

The campaign has angered nationalists.

Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fiercely criticised the initiative on Wednesday, saying: “It will not have any benefit other than stirring up trouble, disturbing our peace and undoing the steps which have been taken.”

But the events of 1915 – the delicate term used by Turkish diplomats – remain a subject of bitter contention between Armenians, who say they suffered genocide, and Turkey, which contends thousands of Turks also died during the final years of the Ottoman empire and denies systematic planning.

But Mr Gul distanced himself from that criticism on Thursday, saying in a statement that while he had worked to promote Turkey’s official position abroad, the public debate showed Turks now felt “more self-confident and at peace with their history”.

The difference in tone between the president and prime minister may fuel speculation that relations are cooling between the two men, long-standing political allies before Mr Gul’s election as president in July 2007.

Mr Gul won international praise in September when he signalled rapprochement with Armenia by attending a football match between the national sides in Yerevan – the first visit by a Turkish head of state.

Cengiz Aktar, one of the organisers of the online apology, said denial of the bloodshed of 1915 was “a founding myth of modern Turkey”.

The text of the apology does not use the word genocide, referring instead to “the Great Catastrophe”, but its implication that modern Turks bear responsibility for the actions of the Ottoman regime has provoked furious protest.

Opposition politicians branded the campaign “treason” and “degeneracy”; retired diplomats, remembering colleagues killed by Armenian activists in the 1970s, issued their own declaration; and rival websites such as www.ozurdilemiyoruz.com/ (“we don’t apologise”) have sprung up.

Sinan Ulgen, head of the EDAM think-tank, said the debate could hinder talks, since Armenians would take a tougher line if they thought public opinion in Turkey had shifted, but the nationalist outcry would in fact leave less room for concessions.

“We need to give as free rein to the negotiations as we can . . . unhindered by this sort of public debate which will backfire,” he said.

But the campaign reflects frustration among liberals that little has changed since the murder in 2007 of Hrant Dink, the Armenian journalist, which at the time sparked an outpouring of sympathy and hopes of reconciliation.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Turkey in two cases dating back to the 1950s and 60s, ordering it to return properties seized from two Armenian foundations or pay compensation totalling €875,000 (£830,000).

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008