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No place for Armenia among gentlemen

Türkiye Materials 16 January 2015 22:00 (UTC +04:00)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Jan.15 that Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Canakkale on April 24.
No place for Armenia among gentlemen

Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.16

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Jan.15 that Turkey will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Canakkale on April 24.

He made the remarks during a joint press conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev who was on a state visit to Turkey Jan.15.

Turkish media reported that today, the most ambitions president in Turkey's history invited Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to take part in the celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the Canakkale victory on April 24.

Over 500,000 people were killed in the Battle of Canakkale, also Known as the Battle of Gallipoli, which took place in 1915 during the First World War. Turkey lost 57,000 people in this battle. Azerbaijani soldiers also participated in this heroic battle.

No matter how bloody it was, the Battle of Canakkale is dubbed as a "gentlemen's war' in Turkey. The country's officials have repeatedly said that this battle was one of the bloody battles in Turkey's history, however, the warring sides never forgot about humanity even under the conditions of war.

A number of pro-Armenian media in Turkey assessed Erdogan's invitation to Sargsyan to take part in the festivities on April 24 as a provocation on the part of the authorities of the country against Armenia.

It should be noted that Turkey has made another gesture of goodwill to Armenia, knowing that Armenia is unwilling to accept such gestures.

Earlier, the Turkish authorities repeatedly made gestures toward Armenia. Erdogan's appeal to the Armenian people on April 24, 2014 may be mentioned among the latter ones. He said that the events of 1915 were a difficult period not only for the Armenians but also for the Arabs, the Kurds and representatives of other ethnic nationalities living in the country.

Although Turkey has repeatedly proposed to create an independent commission to investigate the events of 1915, Armenia continues to reject the proposal.

The silence of Armenia and the Armenian lobby on Ankara's proposal gives reason to access that the claims of "genocide", allegedly faced by Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is slanderous. Otherwise, Armenia would have long ago accepted Turkey's offer.

Some studies of the 1915 events have revealed that it was the Turks and other Muslim nations who suffered genocide, but it is Armenia who tries to play victim.

Portraying itself as a victim of the 1915 events is in the economic interests of Armenia as it stands on the sidelines of regional development. For Yerevan, abandoning a century long lie means deprivation from substantial financial support from the Armenian lobby.

Regarding the question, whether Armenia will accept Turkey's invitation to take part in the festivities, it can be said that if in a time when the former enemies might forget about hatred of each other for the sake of a common future, the Armenian authorities are unlikely to have courage to abandon their long-held thinking.

Edited by CN

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Rufiz Hafizoglu is the head of Trend Agency's Arabic news service, follow him on Twitter: @rhafizoglu

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