BY SAHIN ALPAY
TODAY'S ZAMAN - US President Barack Obama, in his statement commemorating the start of forced deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman government on April 24, 1915, avoided, as he did last year, the use of the word 'genocide' to describe the events. He did the right thing, mainly for two reasons.
Firstly, because 'genocide' declarations by leaders and resolutions by parliaments of third countries do not help the people of Turkey face the question of what happened to the Ottoman Armenians. Such statements and resolutions are exploited by nationalist politicians to suppress the domestic debate and scholarly research on the question, which has been flourishing for at least five years now. The Turkish public, which has been kept ignorant by authorities of the mass deportation and killings of Ottoman Armenians during World War I, in retaliation for Armenian nationalist groups seeking independence from the empire, need more time to reach a sound and objective understanding of what really happened.
Secondly, the range of international problems, especially those that relate to the Middle East, necessitates close cooperation between the governments of Turkey and the US . Surveys show that the Turkish public's highly negative attitudes toward US policies in the region since the Iraq war began have only partially improved since Obama's election and his visit to Turkey last year. It would not have been reasonable for Obama to make a statement that would further fan anti-US sentiment in the Turkish public.
Developments since October, when the Turkish-Armenian protocols were signed with Swiss arbitration, show that neither side is quite ready to ratify the agreement. Yerevan , under opposition pressure, last week officially suspended the ratification process, and Ankara is now similarly under opposition pressure to withdraw the protocols from Parliament. The protocols should not, however, be expected to stay only on paper as long as the two sides continue to see normalization in line with their national interests.