A Turkish Delight?

By Odette Bazil

The Turkish President Mr Abdullah Gul must be delighted to have been awarded the “Chatham House Prize 2010” which he will receive from the hands of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II .
The prestigious Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House ) has praised the President’s efforts of reconciliation with its neighbours , his promotion of Human Rights in Turkey , his policies of tolerance and his protection of its minorities heritage and culture .
How far can one be from truth and reality.
If the Chatham House Team had visited the region and pursued a real fact-finding policy in Turkey , interviewing the very neighbours with whom President Gul is supposed to have reconciled, then today President Gul , instead of being awarded a Prize , would have been questioned about his refusal to open borders which Turkey shares with its Armenian neighbour and has closed for the past 17 years because of Armenia’s dealings with a third country, would have been questioned about the Armenian churches in former Armenia – present day Eastern Anatolia – where crosses have been removed from churches which serve now either as museums , stables or even brothels , and questioned about his denial of the genocide committed in 1915 by his ancestors , where over one and half million innocent Armenian children , men and women were put to death , because of the greed Turkey had for their land and because of intolerance and barbarism .
Anyone with a sense of recollection of the horrors of that period in the history of Turkey , with conscience , fairness , human and moral ethics will find it impossible to swallow , enjoy and digest this Turkish Delight.
Chatham House you had it wrong!

Odette Bazil is a leading Armenian activists who has been instrumental in the establishment of the British-Armenian All-Party Parliamentary Group which includes 49 legislators including Baroness Caroline Cox.