Had neutral Turkey’s entry into the World War I not been precipitated by bungling over the delivery of gunships commissioned from England, and the “gift” of the re-flagged German cruiser Goeben, who knows how very different the history of the early 20th Century might have been.
The recitation of such events is, however, just an empty exercise in historical nostalgia. The list of the mistakes by ignorant political leaders is a long one. But much shorter is the list of errors knowingly made in the face of warnings, pleadings and the best advice available.
We cannot imagine, for example, that six weeks before the April 10, 1998, “Good Friday Agreement” peace brokered between the long-warring factions in Northern Island, that the U.S. Congress’s Foreign Affairs Committee would have weighed in with an incendiary decree on the political factors behind the Irish Potato Famine of 1845.
But that is exactly what Democrat Howard Berman of California did. It took years of quiet diplomacy, ceaseless efforts by academics and journalists in Turkey and Armenia and earnest exchanges by artists and musicians to lead us to the edge of a historic normalization protocol. It took just moments for Berman to effectively kill it. Armenia is likely to remain economically and geographically isolated for another decade. Nationalists on both sides will feast on the fallout.
Note EU-Digest: Unfortunately the Armenian Diaspora needs to keep this conflict with Turkey alive in order to finance their existence and to force nationalists on both sides to continue going at each others throat. In the process of this exercise they have done so many ridiculous acts that they have lost most of their credibility, even among their own supporters.For more: From the Bosphorus: Straight - Returning to ties between Turks, Armenians - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review
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