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Obama urges Turkish-Armenian reconciliation
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ANKARA, Turkey – President Barack Obama steered clear of the term "genocide" while addressing Turkish lawmakers Monday about the widespread killings of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
The bloodshed happened nearly a century ago but is one of the most contentious issues in relations between Turkey and the United States. Turkey discounts the widely held view that there was a systematic campaign to wipe out the Armenian population.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama stated that the killings amounted to genocide, though he was careful not to say so during Monday's address.
Instead, he encouraged Turkey to resolve its dispute with neighbor Armenia and to reopen their shared border, saying "Reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future."
"I know there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915," Obama said in the Turkish parliament. "And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive."
Earlier Monday, he said simply that he had not changed his views on the mass killings, which were already "on the record."
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in the years leading up to and during World War I — an event viewed by many scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey claims the toll has been inflated and the casualties were victims of civil war and unrest.
In 2006, Turkey temporarily suspended military ties with France after the French parliament's lower house adopted a bill to criminalize denying the killings as genocide. The French bill never passed into law, but other countries including Canada, Argentina, Poland and Russia have declared the killings a genocide.
Obama said Monday he wanted to encourage Turkish-Armenian talks, not tilt them in favor of one country.
He praised "courageous" contacts between Turkish and Armenian leaders aimed at reconciliation, and said Turkey should reopen the border it closed in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during its conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"An open border would return the Turkish and Armenian people to a peaceful and prosperous coexistence that would serve both of your nations," the American president said.
Obama also urged Turkey to drop its resistance to reopening a Greek Orthodox seminary, a key demand by the European Union to strengthen Ankara's bid for membership in the bloc.
"Freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant civil society that only strengthens the state, which is why steps like reopening the Halki Seminary will send such an important signal inside Turkey and beyond," Obama said.
The Halki Theological School on Heybeliada Island, near Istanbul, was closed to new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military training under state control. The school closed its doors in 1985, when the last five students graduated.
Turkey argues that a religious institution without government oversight is not compatible with the country's secular institutions. All Muslim clerics in Turkey are provided by the government with training, payment and even scripts for Friday sermons.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, says Ankara wants the school to remain shut to prevent the church from raising new leaders. The church's leader must be a Turkish citizen, which makes it difficult for the dwindling Greek community of several thousand to produce candidates.
Turkey harbors historical mistrust toward the patriarchate, whose officials have appealed for more religious freedom. The patriarchate on the Golden Horn inlet in Istanbul dates from the Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed in 1453 when Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered the city, then called Constantinople.
Obama also praised Turkey's recent cultural overtures to its Kurdish citizens, who have long demanded more rights, and he pledged continued U.S. support for Turkey's fight against the Kurdish rebel group PKK. Currently, Washington provides military intelligence that Turkey has used to bomb suspected rebel havens in northern Iraq.
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ANKARA, Turkey – President Barack Obama steered clear of the term "genocide" while addressing Turkish lawmakers Monday about the widespread killings of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
The bloodshed happened nearly a century ago but is one of the most contentious issues in relations between Turkey and the United States. Turkey discounts the widely held view that there was a systematic campaign to wipe out the Armenian population.
As a presidential candidate in 2008, Obama stated that the killings amounted to genocide, though he was careful not to say so during Monday's address.
Instead, he encouraged Turkey to resolve its dispute with neighbor Armenia and to reopen their shared border, saying "Reckoning with the past can help us seize a better future."
"I know there are strong views in this chamber about the terrible events of 1915," Obama said in the Turkish parliament. "And the best way forward for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive."
Earlier Monday, he said simply that he had not changed his views on the mass killings, which were already "on the record."
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in the years leading up to and during World War I — an event viewed by many scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey claims the toll has been inflated and the casualties were victims of civil war and unrest.
In 2006, Turkey temporarily suspended military ties with France after the French parliament's lower house adopted a bill to criminalize denying the killings as genocide. The French bill never passed into law, but other countries including Canada, Argentina, Poland and Russia have declared the killings a genocide.
Obama said Monday he wanted to encourage Turkish-Armenian talks, not tilt them in favor of one country.
He praised "courageous" contacts between Turkish and Armenian leaders aimed at reconciliation, and said Turkey should reopen the border it closed in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during its conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"An open border would return the Turkish and Armenian people to a peaceful and prosperous coexistence that would serve both of your nations," the American president said.
Obama also urged Turkey to drop its resistance to reopening a Greek Orthodox seminary, a key demand by the European Union to strengthen Ankara's bid for membership in the bloc.
"Freedom of religion and expression lead to a strong and vibrant civil society that only strengthens the state, which is why steps like reopening the Halki Seminary will send such an important signal inside Turkey and beyond," Obama said.
The Halki Theological School on Heybeliada Island, near Istanbul, was closed to new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military training under state control. The school closed its doors in 1985, when the last five students graduated.
Turkey argues that a religious institution without government oversight is not compatible with the country's secular institutions. All Muslim clerics in Turkey are provided by the government with training, payment and even scripts for Friday sermons.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, says Ankara wants the school to remain shut to prevent the church from raising new leaders. The church's leader must be a Turkish citizen, which makes it difficult for the dwindling Greek community of several thousand to produce candidates.
Turkey harbors historical mistrust toward the patriarchate, whose officials have appealed for more religious freedom. The patriarchate on the Golden Horn inlet in Istanbul dates from the Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed in 1453 when Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered the city, then called Constantinople.
Obama also praised Turkey's recent cultural overtures to its Kurdish citizens, who have long demanded more rights, and he pledged continued U.S. support for Turkey's fight against the Kurdish rebel group PKK. Currently, Washington provides military intelligence that Turkey has used to bomb suspected rebel havens in northern Iraq.
