Erdogan at the G20: Denial as Usual

On Saturday, December 1, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, went through an uncomfortable moment during the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires when Argentinean journalist Emilio Nazar Kasbo, from the newspaper "Pregon" of La Plata (capital of the province of Buenos Aires), asked about how much protections refugees have in Turkey against religious discrimination and whether it was time for Turkey to recognize the genocide of the Armenians and have more simple access to economic integration. Kasbo identified himself as the great-grandson of a victim of the genocide.(*)

Ostensibly annoyed, Erdogan stated that "Turkey cannot be charged with having committed a genocide against the Armenians." He completed his usual response with familiar arguments: "About the question of the genocide, let historians debate and listen to what historians have to say. This is not part of our history; I can say this with much confidence and we are ready to participate in any discussion." He clung to the argument that "hundreds of thousands" of Armenians lived in Turkey, with 30,000 of them being citizens and the rest illegals, who "fled from Armenia" to settle in Turkey. He boasted that "they were never discriminated for citizenship reasons and we have never deported any Armenia for those motives. We are very human in our behavior and we will continue to be."

The hundreds of thousands of people fired from their positions without sound reasons, the tens of thousands of people jailed with ludicrous or no charges, and the Kurdish population subject to repression, destruction, and massacre in the southeast of the country are a testament to the "human behavior" reigning in Turkey these days. 

The journalist posed his bothering his question when the press conference was winding down, after the Turkish president defended the participation of his country in the Syrian civil war and criticized the Saudi government for the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Incidentally, according to a report of the Committee to Protect Journalists in December 2017, "Despite releasing some journalists in 2017, Turkey remains the world’s worst jailer for the second consecutive year, with 73 journalists behind bars, compared with 81 last year." So much for its involvement in Khashoggi's infamous assassination.

Ahead of Erdogan's visit, the Armenian-Argentinean community had held a demonstration of protest on November 26 in front of the Turkish embassy in Buenos Aires. 

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(*) See the editorial of "Sardarabad," December 5, 2018 ("En la cumbre del G-20, Erdogan volvió a negar el genocidio").