In detailed comments published in the Sunday edition of the Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman entitled, “Turkey’s attempt to distract from Armenian centennial commemorations falls short,” RSC Director Richard Giragosian offered his assessment of the Turkish president’s invitation to his Armenian counterpart to attend the April 24 centennial commemorations of the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I, to be held on the same day as the traditional commemoration of the Armenian genocide.
.In the article, Giragosian noted that the timing of the Gallipoli invitation could not have been worse. “In fact, in what seems to be a rather selective reinterpretation of history, the Turkish government has set the two-day Gallipoli commemoration for April 23-24, in a blatant disregard for the traditional April 24 commemoration of the Armenian genocide,” he said.
Giragosian stated that Erdoğan's move only triggered an intense negative reaction in Armenia and tended to confirm the perception of Turkey as an “insincere and unreliable interlocutor,” as the timing of the Turkish state commemoration of Gallipoli is viewed as “a crude attempt to distract from and deny the Armenian genocide commemoration.”
Giragosian pointed out that there are concerns over recent developments in Turkish politics. “For one, the rapid rise of President Erdoğan as the most powerful, but most polarizing politician is a cause for worry. And given his rather unpredictable and inflexible personal posture on many issues, there is concern that he will have and hold too much personal and political power, without due deference to the rule of law or democratic institutions within Turkey,” he said.
“At the same time, the future of both Turkey's broader regional policy and its more specific policy towards Armenian-Turkish normalization are ever more hostage to the outcome of domestic Turkish politics,” Giragosian added.
Erdoğan's invitation could be interpreted as an olive branch to Armenia, with which Turkey has no diplomatic relations. But Sarksyan in his letter to Erdoğan last week indicated his doubts about the sincerity of the invitation and expressed his expectation that Turkey will reply first to Armenia as to whether it will attend the ceremonies to commemorate the Armenian “genocide” in Yerevan.
“For his part, the Armenian president had little choice but to reject the invitation,” said Giragosian.