I was gone for 6 months but now im back. We can resume this discussion... and dont turn it into the other thread about the genocide where you guys just bashed each other with little reliable factual information i might add.

If Turks and Armenians cant get along online then that should say something about both our nations .

Cmon, lets be civil, present factual information, and leave our opinions at home. This thread was going great until my computer crashed and TheDiplomat had no one to discuss the topic with .

I think we set the record for a Turkish-Armenian genocide discussion without flaming,lol. Lets keep it going.

Wait a second, since when did TUrkey have 1/3 of Russia? Are you talkingabout the lands it hand during the Ottoman Empire?? Oh wait, didn't you say that Turkey as a nation can't be responcible for the Ottoman GOvernment, yet you are claiming lands from it? Whats is this all about??

I deleted my post.

Ok forget about those who live in Russia. Let's take the Tajiks as an example. Would they ever be willing to unite with the other Turkic Central Asian countries? I guess not... so why would they want to unite with Turkey?

Seko what does that article have to do with the whole thing? Why don't you mention the fact that the Turkish government is going to trade the Incirlik base for the annulation of the genocide bill (in the US). If Turkey is so sure the Genocide didn't happen, why does it need to do this?

No need to go nuts man, calm down...

Responding to your info, the whole point of the genocide recognition is the idea that there were approximately 2 million Armenians in eastern Anatolia that were forcefully removed from their homes, thus making Armenians pretty much extinct in the region. Not just able-bodied men, but women and children. What fault is it of a woman and child to be forced to relocate for military purposes...they pose no threat. Thats the whole point of the genocide argument, that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered and removed from their homes, thus making them extinct in the region. Whether you choose to believe the genocide happened is entirely up to you, but anyone can look at a map of population density from pre-1914 to post 1914 to see what happened in the region.  

To find healing for past ancesteral suffering sounds like a good idea. Asking those who did not commit suffering upon another is not a good idea. I do not believe for a minute that the majority of Turks care to discredit their country (Republic of Turkey) for the sake of recollecting the "greatness of the Ottoman empire".  Every ethnic group from the old Ottoman empire has a claim towards seeking attention for old wounds if they so desire. They also have a claim to heal such wounds if they have not been healed already. The wound currently is not a physical one, but its a psychological trauma that gets relived every time someone experiences harm from thinking about it. The healing comes from within. Healing also becomes fostered by brotherly regards for eachother. Otherwise the blame-game is continuous and the wound festers. Then no healing is produced (unless one's intentions are to seek pleasure at anothers misery). So, the challenge is to grow in a healthy fashion and not politicise a past that has detrimental ramifications for the future.  

Cutting adrift sounds like having no where to go. Believe me. People live for the moment and plan for the future. During idle time we also dream about the past. For some it is a fascination, for others its an obsession. So it seems as though every moment we share is purposefully driven.

Thats true to an extent but you cannot ride roughsod over other peoples feelings then dismiss it as the product of intentions to cause misery. This is ridiculous.

Nations do have to apologise for their Ancestors misdeeds. The reasons are mainly because those same Generations have to live with the results of these historical injustices in the present.

What you do, 7 generations will feel the effects of your actions is an expression i heard in Bosnia 10 years ago.

British have had to apologise and be made to feel bad for their Colonial Misdeeds, so too the Germans.. Turks are no exception, especially if you have pretensions to EU accession, then you are expected to take very seriously these issues of Human rights. They must be enshrined in the hearts and minds of evert Turk right from school age to the day of death.

I am afraid to say, that the Armenian question will not go away. It is a fundamental issue as regards to whether you really mean to embrace European values wholeheartedly or not. It is about a Cultural sea change.

Of course you will rightly say that Europeans are stinking hypocrites and do not practice what they preach. However I say this.

There is a Culture here of merciless self Criticism. The War in Iraq was immoral. The Government has been very bitterly criticised ever since. There is no emotional rush to defend Britains behaviour by British people. We see it as it is. Wrong. This is the expression of values for Human rights that i am describing.

If the Government commits an injustice, people do not acquiesce.

War is wrong. Genocide is wrong- regardless of the historical factors.

Sorry, you are totally right. I dont want to be a problem and cause stupid insults. But I want you to now that my point wasnt to insult any members. For not to let any possibility of me being wrongly understood and placed in the "attacker" position, I will delete my post. I think I cant calm down sometimes...

You have some good points. But what i dont understand is, Turks take pride in all the great things the Ottoman Empire achieved. And rightfully so, it was a unique empire. But when the subject of the genocide comes up, many of them choose to detach themselves from that same history and say that present-day Turkey had nothing to do with it. You cant have a double standard, one standard will do just fine. You must take the good with the bad. Modern-day Turks are not to blame for the genocide, and by this logic shouldnt have to pay reparations for what their grand-parents did. But what about their neighboring nation, more than half of which were displaced and remain so to this very day. Does their suffering end in vain? Does everything change simply because 90 years have passed? Many people would like to think so. Imagine if there were no Nuremberg trials and Germany denied the Holocaust, and 90 years had passed. Its the same thing, except we didnt get any Nuremberg trials. The Holocaust, like the genocide, was an event in which everyone around the world at the time knew it was happening. Ive read countless newspaper articles from 1915-1923 from the U.S., France, Britain, many other nations. Debate all you want about forced relocation due to military necessity, but how can you ignore the countless women and children lost in this tragic event? Maybe im stupid and dont understand, maybe women and children back then took up arms and participated in revolts. Maybe im missing something, when tens of thousands of soldiers in the Ottoman army were Armenian, how we managed to plot and execute a genocide against the Turks or Kurds, when we didnt even have a centralized government to begin with. And there is a connection between the Ottoman government and present-day Turkish government. The last ruling regime in the Ottoman Empire was the Young Turk party. By my standards thats a good enough connection. Every Empire had to have at least one regime which was perceived as "evil" by at least one other nation, or else they wouldnt have lasted as an empire to begin with.

Before Hitler invaded Poland he convinced his officers of the Holocaust plan by saying these very words: "Who remembers now the annihilation of the Armenians?" He obviously knows something of major magnitude happened in Eastern Anatolia. Whether people choose to call it genocide or not is up to them, genocide is only a word, what happened still remains. You can either choose to believe it or not.

Modern-day Turks, the average Turk, is not being accused of these crimes. It is only the government. Many people dont understand that. It is not a personal attack on their ethnicity or culture. We simply want recognition of what took place, along with the appropriate reparations, whatever they may be. There are stories of Turkish citizens risking their own well-being by hiding away Armenian children so they wouldnt be massacred. We are not accusing every Turk. Just the government. So theres no need to have this genocide discussion be a personal one.