Turkey threatens to expel 100,000 Armenians

[jimmy olsen]

Talk about not getting the point.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8572934.stm

Turkey threatens to expel 100,000 Armenians

Turkey's prime minister has threatened to deport 100,000 Armenian migrants, amid renewed tensions over Turkish mass killings of Armenians in World War I.

Recent resolutions in the US and Sweden have called the killings "genocide".

Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the BBC that of 170,000 Armenians living in Turkey "70,000 are Turkish citizens".

"We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000... Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary."

Thousands of Armenians, many of them women, work illegally in Turkey. Most do low-skilled jobs such as cleaning.

Mr Erdogan was speaking in an interview with the BBC's Turkish Service, in which he was asked about the recent votes by lawmakers in the US and Sweden.

The resolutions, recognising the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "genocide", were passed narrowly, and in both cases Turkey reacted angrily.

Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian was quoted as telling parliament on Wednesday that Mr Erdogan's comments only reminded Armenians of the mass killings.

"These kinds of political statements do not help to improve relations between our two states," he said.

"When the Turkish prime minister allows himself to make such statements it immediately for us brings up memories of the events of 1915."

Diplomatic moves to normalise relations between Turkey and Armenia have faltered recently.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915, when they were deported en masse from eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire. They were killed by troops or died from starvation and disease.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed, but Turkey says the figure is no more than one-third of that and that many Turks died as well.

Turkey accepts that atrocities were committed but argues they were part of the war and that there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people.

Armenia wants Turkey to recognise the killings as an act of genocide, but successive Turkish governments have refused to do so.

Armenians have campaigned for the killings to be recognised internationally as genocide - and more than 20 countries have done so.

[citizen k]

Cleaning house for wealthy Turks: fail?

[Alexandru H.]

Wouldn't be easier to kill them and cover up the whole thing under the protection of Turkish Nationalism? It worked for 80 years...

[Jaron]

I think if these Armenians want to remain there, they need to ante up , cut ties with the old country and start behaving like good Turks. Otherwise, go back to Armenia?

[Razgovory]

Hey, maybe the Euros will be more inclined to let the Turks in the EU if the Turks go through with the ethnic cleansing. 

[Sahib]

Hey, maybe the Euros will be more inclined to let the Turks in the EU if the Turks go through with the ethnic cleansing.

This post doesn't make any sense, but then it's your post so it's expected.

[Neil]

Hey, maybe the Euros will be more inclined to let the Turks in the EU if the Turks go through with the ethnic cleansing.

This post doesn't make any sense, but then it's your post so it's expected.

They let in Germany and Poland, so why not Turkey?

[Faeelin]

I am apalled a politician suggested expelling illegal immigrants. Americans would never tolerate someone who said something like that.

[The Minsky Moment]

Erdogan and the AKP are doing everything they can to prove Lord Acton right.

Paging queequeg . . .

[Ed Anger]

Erdogan and the AKP are doing everything they can to prove Lord Acton right.

Paging queequeg . . .

You don't need to page him. His turko-greek-armenaian-persian alarm (It is made out of olives, gold chains and smells like sweat and feet) is already going off.

[HVC]

Spellus has been there for like a month and he's already annoyed enough people with his Armenian obsession that the country is planning on expelling them. now that's a talent.

[Razgovory]

Spellus has been there for like a month and he's already annoyed enough people with his Armenian obsession that the country is planning on expelling them. now that's a talent.

The kid's got moxy.

[The Brain]

WTF I don't care about 100,000 Armenians.

[Habbaku]

WTF I don't care about 100,000 Armenians.

[Queequeg]

Enormously disappointing.  Even if I agree with his other statement (basically, the Diaspora has managed to fuck over Armenia with this), this is just sabre-rattling horseshit that I'd expect from the CHP (Gul was famously "accused" of being Armenian), but thought the AKP was (generally) above.    Looks like I was wrong.  I can't vote here, so I'm just going to throw up my hands and hope some sane CHP member comes around.