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Washington Times: Erdogan’s foul play: Turkey is teaming up with Azerbaijan to punish Armenia

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OPINION:

As President Recep Tayyip Erdogan begins his third decade in power, he has solidified his place as Turkey’s second-most consequential leader after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the republic a century ago.

With the opposition disempowered if not in disarray, Mr. Erdogan now seeks to fulfill his lifelong ambition: the complete and permanent reversal of Ataturk’s legacy of modern reforms.

American and European officials who believe, with the election in the rearview mirror, that they can return to business as usual with Turkey are dangerously mistaken. The issues that concern Mr. Erdogan most are neither interest rates at home nor Swedish NATO accession abroad, but rather laying the groundwork for the renewal of an Islamic state if not a formal caliphate.

Just as Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the downfall of the Soviet Union the 20th century’s greatest “geopolitical catastrophe,” Mr. Erdogan believes it was the Ottoman Empire’s collapse.

None of this is idle speculation. Mr. Erdogan has said exactly what he wants.

He has described himself as the “imam of Istanbul” and as “servant of Sharia.” He declared that his goal is “to raise a religious generation.” He has described Turkish forces invading Syria as the “Army of Muhammad.” The reconversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque did not occur in isolation.

The latest foul play by Mr. Erdogan involves Armenia, the world’s oldest Christian nation. As Mr. Erdogan seeks to extend the reach of the Turkic and Islamic world from Turkey’s border with Greece and Bulgaria to China, Armenia, a country just slightly larger than Maryland, stands in his way.

Today, Mr. Erdogan believes he has found his moment to reverse this geopolitical inconvenience. The Turks tried more than a century ago, wiping away more than a million Armenians in a genocide Adolf

A Christian Nation in Trouble,

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Karabakh Armenians shouldn’t have to sacrifice their safety and autonomy.

Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave within its international borders, is now stretching into its eighth month. By blocking the single road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia proper, the kleptocratic regime in Baku seeks to squelch the Karabakhi Armenians’ aspirations to self-determination and to humiliate Yerevan.

The good news is that Team Biden seems closely engaged with the crisis. The bad news is that Washington might be preparing to throw the Karabakhis under the bus, even as the administration has been helpful to Armenia proper in recent months.

On July 3, Kristina Kvien, the American envoy to Yerevan, sparked a justified freakout among the Armenians after she said in an interview that “all parties”—meaning the Azeris included—agree that “the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents must be guaranteed.” The subtext, as the Armenian government protested, was that the Karabakhi Armenians could live safely under Baku’s rule, as ordinary citizens of Azerbaijan.

Kvien later clarified her remarks, noting that “the United States does not presuppose the outcome of negotiations on the future of Nagorno-Karabakh” and “supports an agreement that is durable, sustainable, and lays the foundations for peace.” That’s good enough, so far as it goes. Still, the original remarks revealed an alarming naivete about the realities of the conflict.

Home to 120,000 Armenians, a quarter of them children, Nagorno-Karabakh is where the Armenian alphabet was developed. The Armenian people—the world’s oldest Christian nation—maintained a measure of sovereignty there even as the great empires traded control of the South Caucasus for centuries. Known to the Armenians as Artsakh, Nagorno-Karabakh was also the birthplace of the modern Armenian independence movement inside the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (where it had been relegated by ethnicities commissar Stalin).

Amid the breakup of the USSR, the Karabakhis took control of the enclave in a war with Azerbaijan that saw both sides commit atrocities, including population transfers. Not even Armenia proper recognized the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, however, and the dispute soon emerged as one of the world’s most intractable “frozen conflicts.” In 2020, however, the Azerbaijanis managed to recapture much of the territory, and more recently, the Baku regime has made military incursions into Armenia proper, even leaking “torture porn” showing Armenian troops enduring unspeakable crimes.

It’s conduct like that that makes the Armenians gasp when they hear statements like Kvien’s. The regime in Baku doesn’t even respect the rights of its own population, let alone Armenian Christians whom it views as interlopers, whose ancient cross stones and cemeteries it destroys, and who have been the subject of decades of ethno-sectarian animus from official organs. The notion that the Karabakhi Armenians can “integrate” into Azerbaijan, or that Baku has already agreed to recognize their rights in any meaningful sense, is a dangerous fantasy.

The Azeris’ goal, as the Armenian analyst Eric Hacopian told me during a reporting trip last year, is to conduct ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, establish a sovereign corridor across Armenia proper to their exclave of Nakhichevan, and ultimately to bring about the “Gaza-faction” of Armenia: a rump state with which the Azerbaijanis (and their Turkish allies) can do as they please.

The moment is golden, from their point of view. Russia, Armenia’s historic protector, is distracted in Ukraine, and the 2,000 or so Russian troops tasked by the “international community” to protect the corridor between Nagorno and Armenia proper are sitting on their hands. The Azeri fisc, meanwhile, is flush with petrodollars for Western lobbying. Baku promises more gas than it can deliver to a desperate European Union, and sells itself as an anti-Iran spear tip to the Israelis and American hawks.

Even so, the P.R. and political tide may be turning in Western capitals. Notwithstanding Kvien’s naive remarks, the Biden administration and congressional Democrats have been quite strong in their support of Armenia; many officials in Yerevan credit Nancy Pelosi for putting a stop to the Azeris’ latest assault by taking a solidarity delegation. Sens. Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, meanwhile, are making a bipartisan push to stop American military assistance to Baku. That pairing is especially notable, since both are normally hawkish on Russia and Iran but have clearly had it with the Azeris’ behavior.

Friends of Armenia, Democratic and Republican, must make it clear to the Biden administration that the safety and autonomy of the Karabakh Armenians, and their preferences, can’t be sacrificed in any push for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Otherwise, America risks replicating the kind of border redrawing from on high that gave rise to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem in the first place.

Sohrab Ahmari

Sohrab Ahmari is a founder and editor of Compact magazine, a contributing editor of The American Conservative, and a visiting fellow of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University. His books include From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith (Ignatius, 2019) and The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos (Convergent/Random House, 2021). He is currently writing a book about privatized tyranny in America.

Michael Rubin: Did ‘Hotel Rwanda’’s Paul Rusesabagina Just Sabotage Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace?

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Paul Rusesabagina came to fame two decades ago as the hero in the movie Hotel Rwanda.

While reality was not as Hollywood depicted, fame sparked first ambition and then, failing to gain support in Rwanda, bitterness. He spoke about the necessity to overthrow the Rwandan government by any means necessary and then acted on it, wiring money to a terrorist group. Under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of the State Department’s top goals in Africa was to convince Burundi, the continent’s poorest country, to cease allowing cross-border insurgents to use its territory. He succeeded. Rusesabagina fumed.

In June 2020, Évariste Ndayishimiye became president of Burundi. Rusesabagina sought to convince him to cease stopping the terrorists Rusesabagina funded. After his capture, Rusesabagina’s story that he was taking a private jet to Burundi to talk to a church never made sense given Burundi’s poverty and the expense of international private charters.

After the plane diverted to Rwanda, a deception international law allows, Rwandan forces arrested Rusesabagina and tried him for crimes relating to terrorist attacks in southern Rwanda. The evidence was overwhelming. Behind the scenes, the State Department believed it. Rusesabagina’s supporters lobbied, Hollywood donors rallied, image trumped truth, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan intervened.

Negotiations were tough. Rusesabagina was a Belgian citizen. Belgian police certified the validity of evidence against him. Despite claims to the contrary, his trial was transparent and the Rwandans treated him well in prison. Privately, State Department officials acknowledged no evidence supported his adopted daughters’ claims of mistreatment.

Negotiators had to address not only Rusesabagina, but also his co-conspirators as it would be an affront to pardon one among many involved in the crime. Under Rwandan law, criminals can seek amnesty if they show contrition. Sullivan, Rusesabagina’s lawyers, and the former hotelier himself agreed he would. Rusesabagina penned a letter, seeking clemency, and acknowledging his calls to and support for violence and terrorism. He promised, “If I am granted a pardon and released, I understand fully that I will spend the remainder of my days in the United States in quiet reflection. I can assure you through this letter that I hold no personal or political ambitions otherwise. I will leave questions regarding Rwandan politics behind me.”

That lasted two months. Rusesabagina’s downfall has always been addiction to limelight. In late June, the New York Times published a lengthy interview in which Rusesabagina said, “‘They expected me to be silent. To be a good guy and behave . . . . No one can silence me that easily.”

The issue was never Rusesabagina’s silence but rather his terrorism sponsorship. While Rusesabagina’s supporters parry by criticizing Rwandan President Paul Kagame, these complaints are immaterial to his case: They do not justify the terror attack on Nyabimata that killed nine civilians.

Sullivan and Blinken have a problem. They gave their word to Rwanda to achieve a short-term goal and relieve donor pressure. Should they not respond to the deal’s violation, for example by deporting Rusesabagina to Belgium, then they signal that the agreements they broker are meaningless.

Sullivan and Blinken now turn their efforts to peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The chief sticking point is Armenian insistence that Azerbaijan guarantees the rights and safety of the ancient Christian community in Nagorno-Karabakh and their cultural heritage.

Rwanda may be a long way from Armenia, but the trauma of genocide links the two countries. Their ministers pay homage at each other’s memorials. The rhetoric in which Azerbaijan now engages parallels the genocide minimization if not denial that Hutu génocidaires and Rusesabagina himself engage. As Armenians seek American guarantees, they should recognize the cynicism with which Sullivan and Blinken conduct diplomacy. They should not gamble on the sanctity of any agreement Blinken negotiates or Sullivan guarantees, for neither keeps promises. For the government of Armenia or residents of Nagorno-Karabakh to trust either man now would be suicide.

Learn more: Punishing Blockades, Not Endless Talk, Is the Path to Peace | Britain’s Incredible Hypocrisy on Cluster Bombs | The Turkey-Iran Terror Nexus in Occupied Cyprus Shakes the Status Quo | Why Do Russia and Turkey Constantly Get the United States Wrong?

Today, the protest actions, which started yesterday in Yerevan demanding the immediate unblocking of #Artsakh continued.

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Today, the protest actions, which started yesterday in Yerevan demanding the immediate unblocking of Artsakh continued.

Protesters participating in the informative demonstration assembled in front of the Embassy of France and remained engaged in their cause. Subsequently, they proceeded to march from the Embassy of France to the US Embassy in Yerevan. Notably, the protest also included Artsakh children who had been displaced from their homes in Hadrut due to Azerbaijani aggression. The protests are being coordinated by the Operational Headquarters of the Government of the Republic of Artsakh.

Grigory Karasin Russian Federation Council Committee responds to accusations against Russia from Azerbaijan

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Grigory Karasin, Chair of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, reacted to the “unfriendly” expressions of Azerbaijani MP Hudrat Hasanguliev.

In response to the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry on July 15, Hasanguliev claimed that “Russia does not want peace in the South Caucasus and is interested in the continuation of the bloody conflict between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples.”

The Azerbaijani MP even allowed himself to call Russia “unreliable and bloodthirsty,” and demanded the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeeping contingent from Nagorno-Karabakh, EaDaily wrote.

“I hope that such anti-Russian attacks do not reflect the official position of Baku. It would be important to evaluate them in the Azerbaijani parliament as well,” said Karasin.

“I would like to remind the [aforesaid] MP that in all phases of the Karabakh conflict, it was mostly with the efforts of the Russian Federation that it was possible to stop the hostilities, bring the parties to the negotiating table, and reach compromises.

“In the fall of 2020, the bloodshed in the region was stopped with the personal mediation of [Russian] President V. V. Putin. With the participation of Moscow, tripartite agreements were developed at a high level, which form the basis of the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement.

“The Russian peacekeepers deployed [in Nagorno-Karabakh] by the decision of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia have brought peace to Karabakh, they are helping to solve priority humanitarian and socioeconomic issues. I will mention only one fact: since November 2020, the [Russian peacekeeping] contingent [in Karabakh] has demined more than 2.5 thousand hectares of land, including about 700 kilometers of roads. Our peacekeepers have given Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijanis a chance to talk about a peace agenda. We consider the demands to withdraw the Russian contingent as completely irresponsible.

“And in general, H. Hasanguliyev’s statement completely contradicts the spirit and content of the declaration of allied cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Azerbaijan of February 22, 2022, and does not correspond to the high level of relations between Baku and Moscow, including on the parliamentary line. We at the [Russian] Federation Council are ready to continue the constructive dialogue with our Azerbaijani colleagues, who, as we know, are absolute majority,” Karasin added.

Turkish Consul in Los Angeles Lobbies Elected Officials to Ignore Armenian-American Concerns

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In late June 2023, Turkish Consul General in Los Angeles, Sinan Kuzum, disseminated a letter to California lawmakers in an attempt to highlight “positive developments in the Turkish and Armenian relationship,” referring to the ongoing negotiations between Armenia and Turkey, and the participation of Armenia’s Prime Minister in the inauguration of Turkey’s President. In his inflammatory letter, Kuzum accused the Armenian Diaspora in Los Angeles of attempting to hamper the goodwill and spirit of peaceful negotiations between Armenia and Turkey, urging lawmakers to be mindful of the ongoing negotiations before they speak on matters concerning Armenian-Turkish relations.

The Turkish Consul General’s letter is just the latest example of the Turkish government’s efforts to silence the Armenian diaspora’s voice and effectiveness in advocating for a just US foreign policy in the region. Furthermore, the consul general’s letter is indicative of a larger problem that should be of grave concern to Americans and policymakers alike–a foreign principal actively engaged in efforts to bend local, state, and federal policymakers to the will of a foreign country, in direct conflict with their constituents’ interests and needs.

The Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region responded to the Turkish Consul General’s letter, condemning their deception and distortion of facts. The Turkish government has a long history of denying the Armenian Genocide and, more recently, supplied Azerbaijan with weaponry and personnel during the 2020 Artsakh War. 

“The Turkish Consul General’s letter is a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from the Turkish government’s own obstructionism on the path to normalization of relations,” said ANCA – Western Region Board Chair Nora Hovsepian Esq. “Whitewashing its history of genocide and human rights violations is nothing new for Turkey. We will continue to hold the Turkish government accountable until it fulfills its historical obligations to the Armenian people. The Armenian diaspora will not be silenced, and we will continue to fight for justice for the Armenian Genocide and the crimes Turkey has been actively committing against Armenia, Artsakh, and the Diaspora as a whole. We trust that our elected officials will continue to prioritize the concerns of their own Armenian-American constituents over the shameless lobbying of a foreign government trying to dismiss those legitimate concerns.” 

The Armenian National Committee of America Western Region is the largest and most influential Armenian-American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian American community on a broad range of issues.

Punishing blockades, not endless talk, is the path to peace

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by Michael Rubin,

When Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin sought to strangle West Berlin into submission 75 years ago, President Harry Truman stood firm lest dictators’ blockades become the norm. The Berlin Airlift brought temporary relief. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev concluded President John F. Kennedy was weak and vulnerable. He again turned his sites on Berlin, but Kennedy pushed back hard. West Berlin remained secure, even if divided, until the end of the Cold War.

Credibility matters, but six decades after Kennedy, Western fortitude is in short supply. When dictators challenge democracies, diplomats often counsel dialogue but do nothing else. This has led dictators to embrace blockades and starvation as a policy tool. Less than a year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the Nobel Peace Prize, for example, he blockaded his country’s Tigray region to force its political submission. When he saw the West was all talk and no action, he simply tightened the noose. Several hundred thousand people died.

TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY, OR THE MINORITY OF ONE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev now repeats the process in Nagorno-Karabakh, home to one of the world’s most ancient Christian communities. In December 2022, he violated an agreement to keep a corridor open to allow traffic between the Armenian-populated region and the outside world. Last week, he even cut Red Cross shipments to the region. When Secretary of State Antony Blinken pleaded for dialogue, Aliyev responded with bullets fired at an American factory.

Neither the White House nor the State Department needed to be impotent. More than a quarter-century ago, Congress gave both the tools to tackle those who would use blockades and starvation as tools of statecraft.

The end of the Cold War lifted the lid off a pressure cooker. Long-suppressed local conflicts erupted in Ethiopia, Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union. As both Turkey and Azerbaijan blockaded Armenia, American authorities debated how to respond, especially when one recipient of U.S. assistance interfered with the delivery of U.S. assistance elsewhere. The result was the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act. Initially part of the 1996 Foreign Operations Bill, Congress inserted it as an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 the next year, enshrining it in U.S. law. 

Specifically, the law declares: “No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act [22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.] to any country … [that] prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.”

Frankly, it is common sense. Aid is not an entitlement, and those diverting, blocking, or embezzling American aid should not themselves receive any. Unlike other provisions that Blinken and effete diplomats waive in the false logic that accountability might impede dialogue, there is no waiver to the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act. If Abiy wants to block aid to Tigray or whatever ethnic minority displeases him, then all American assistance to Ethiopia should immediately cease.

Ditto Azerbaijan. The Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act does not require the formal designation of a blockade, so the State Department cannot weasel its way out with a false determination. Nor does it require that blocked aid be destined for a country. In short, U.S. officials could shrug their shoulders and inform Aliyev they have no choice but to suspend all assistance until he lifts all blockades and stops his ethnic-cleansing efforts.

Too often, administrations seek to reinvent the wheel. Dictators exploit the rotation of democracies’ diplomats and the lack of institutional memory.

It is time the State Department and Congress wake up. Legal mechanisms exist to restore credibility to American diplomacy and fight the growing scourge of blockades and ethnic cleansing. It is time for Congress to invoke the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act, restore credibility to American diplomacy, and demonstrate that preventing genocide is not a throwaway line to advance a career, but an active goal of American policy.

Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Turkish deputy calls YouTuber “son of Pashinyan” to insult,

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The traitor’s sleazy boot-licking has become so grotesque Turks actually replaced “son of a b*tch” with “son of Pashinyan”.

Deputy Enginyurt, recently elected deputy under the main opposition CHP, has used the expression “Son of Pashinyan” to insult a pro-government social media figure.

A Turkish opposition deputy called a pro-government YouTuber, who earlier in a video praised the government for its natural gas discovery in the Black Sea, “son of Pashinyan” to insult him.

Cemal Enginyurt, the deputy chairman of the center right Democrat Party, ran under the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and was elected deputy on 14 May. He was formerly a member of the far right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Asked to comment on the recent consumer tax hikes in gasoline and natural gas, Enginyurt said on Monday during a broadcast of Sozcu TV:

“There is that clown who was telling that natural gas is free now. He was making such a fuss, telling people to leave their windows open. What a clown! He had made a fuss over a 25% reduction in natural gas bills, and he gloated, ‘Hey Pashinyan, you saw what happened?’ He was so sardonic.”

Enginyurt went on to call the YouTuber, “son of Pashinyan,” connoting “son of a bitch.” With an apparent intention to insult the YouTuber, he said:

“Now it’s my turn to ask, what happened, son of Pashinyan? Clown! Now the consumer tax on natural gas has been raised by 300%.”

Neither the show’s host Ebru Baki, neither the other guest Ali Haydar Firat reacted to Enginyurt’s remarks, or even showed a change of expression on their faces, as the three went on with their chat on the government’s tax hikes.

The True Meaning of Ataturk’s Legacy | Opinion

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STEPHAN PECHDIMALDJI , PUBLIC RELATIONS PROFESSIONAL 

Later this year, Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its republic, founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, one of the most revered figures in modern Turkish history.

While there will be much praise and accolades paid to Ataturk as a leader who led Turkey to independence after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and paved the way for democracy, for Armenian American families like mine, it is a stark reminder of how Ataturk continued the genocidal actions of the Young Turks, who were responsible for the 1915 Armenian genocide.

For years, Armenian Americans have fought for recognition of the genocide, when more than 1.5 million Armenians were systematically exterminated by the Ottoman Turks—a crime that Turkey denies to this day. And while Ataturk is credited with turning Turkey into a progressive nation-state, he shared the same hate and animosity toward minority communities including Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians. He saw these groups as a threat to the Turkification and Islamification of Asia Minor and embarked on a campaign to drive these communities out of the country, which culminated in the burning of Smyrna in 1922 by Turkish forces, which destroyed the city and drove its residents—many of whom were Greek and Armenian—into exile.

In many ways, Ataturk tried to finish what the Young Turks started in 1915, and even went a step further to ensure that history would judge him and his country favorably. It is one of the reasons why he founded the Turkish Historical Society as one of his last acts right before he died, which was responsible for guarding and maintaining the state’s official history. It was his way to make sure that Turkey’s role and responsibility in committing these crimes against humanity would somehow be forgotten or swept away into the dustbin of history.

That mentality and mindset has carried on throughout the last 100 years with Turkey still trying to control its narrative and history. It is why the Turkish government spends so much money today on lobbyists to manufacture and shape its image. And it’s also why Turkey’s current authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has taken exception to any country that recognizes the Armenian genocide or holds them accountable for human rights violations. The image-conscious leader has even gone as far as rebranding the world’s perception of Turkey by officially changing the country’s name to Türkiye to part ways with any bird comparisons.

Turkey’s anniversary also comes at a very precarious time for the Armenian people. In the fall of 2020, Turkey’s ally, Azerbaijan, launched an unprovoked war against ethnic Armenians living in their ancestral homeland of Nagorno-Karabakh. The war which lasted 44 days, has been followed by a campaign to ethnically cleanse Armenians from the region.

For Armenians around the world, they see what is happening in Nagorno-Karabakh through the lens of their painful history. They see these latest acts of aggression, with the help of Turkey, as a continuation of the Armenian genocide and an existential threat to their very existence.

Ataturk’s legacy and the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh are not mutually exclusive. To a large extent, history is happening again. By disavowing its history, Turkey is essentially giving Azerbaijan a level of confidence that it can say or do anything they want, without consequences.

Supporters of then-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now president, hold a poster with his picture (R) and that of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern day Turkey, as they await his arrival at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul on June 6, 2013.OZAN KOSE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

That type of self-assurance allowed Azerbaijan to launch their war against Armenia and has given them license to illegally block the only road linking more than 120,000 Armenians to the outside world for more than seven months without any accountability.

Additionally, the rhetoric stemming from Azerbaijan today harkens back to the final days of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the Republic of Turkey, which is rooted in the same type of xenophobia and racism felt toward Armenians.

So, while the messenger might be different, the message is the same. Azerbaijan is taking a page right out of Turkey’s history book and promoting a climate of hate toward Armenians. That hate has manifested itself through words and actions. In recent speeches, we’ve heard Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, unequivocally claim that Armenia is their historical land, while calling Armenia “Western Azerbaijan.”

We have seen this hate carried out through the treatment and torture of Armenian POWs and blatant execution of captured Armenian soldiers. And Azerbaijan continues to plant seeds of hate by enacting a state policy that hatred toward the Armenian people be taught to school children across the country.

Azerbaijan is taking its cues from Turkey and proving once again that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That is why Turkey should use the upcoming anniversary and festivities as a moment in time to fully reckon with its history and accept and formally acknowledge its role and responsibility in the Armenian genocide, and stop with its genocide denial campaign which started under Ataturk.

They need to put an end to this type of historical whitewashing and revisionism. It’s dangerous and irresponsible, and it’s costing lives. If Turkey is to be the model moderate Muslim-majority country that it wishes to be, it should come to terms with its past.

The Armenian people deserve it.

Stephan Pechdimaldji is a communications strategist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s a first-generation Armenian American and grandson to survivors of the Armenian genocide.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/true-meaning-ataturks-legacy-opinion-1813119