You may call it bias or lack of trust, but I believe this feeling is shared by many Turks as a result of the diaspora's uninterrupted efforts to convict Turkey of a shameful crime all over the world; from Paris to Buenos Aires, from Washington to Strausbourg. Even if there exists hope that Turkey will one day have good relations with Armenia, most Turks don't expect the same with the diaspora. This sign of hope emerged when I saw the results of a questionnaire posted by armeniadiaspora.com. It is a credible diaspora website, at least in the eyes of Armenians, because the Armenian Foreign Ministry has a link to that site on its homepage. It is a platform where the Armenian diaspora exchanges opinions gets community news, lobbies for their causes, etc.
The questionnaire's aim was to understand the impact of Hrant Dink's slaying on Turkish-Armenian relations.
One question asks, "Do you think that slaying of Hrant Dink a) makes dialogue between Armenia and Turkey impossible, b) is another step toward denial of an Armenian genocide or c) makes dialogue between Armenia and Turkey easier, especially considering the reaction to the murder in both countries."
When I was writing this piece, 61 percent of the participants were saying that Dink's slaying will help Turkish-Armenian relations.
It was a good decision for the Turkish government to turn tragedy into opportunity by inviting leading figures from Armenia and the Armenian diaspora to the ceremony. The reactions of those who witnessed Dink's funeral were also in line with that statistic.
For instance, Samson Ozararat, who is part of the Armenian diaspora in France and an adviser to the Armenian foreign minister, attended the funeral. He was hopeful as he expressed his feelings about the event: "What I saw in the funeral was encouraging. The funeral did most of what Hrant was trying to do in his life. All the colors of Anatolia met in the funeral."
Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Arman Kirakosyan also attended to the funeral and made a statement declaring their readiness "to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey with no preconditions."
Indeed, in the past Turks have seen positive results coming from disasters in their foreign policy. One of the most recent and sounding examples of that was the terrible 1999 earthquake, which rescued Turkish-Greek relations. Both sides of the Aegean tried to help each other, creating positive feelings in both capitals. This happened despite the fact that terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan was caught in the Greek embassy in Kenya in the same year.
Similarly, we saw an earthquake play an important role in relations between India and Pakistan.
However, such tragedies have the potential only to change people's minds, an essential but not sufficient factor in making big leaps toward radical decisions. If this positive environment is not supported by politicians and foreign ministries, it will be hard to expect an end in the deadlock between Armenia and Turkey.
Because of this, Ankara is in a difficult position to convince its Azeri brother that good relations between Turkey and Armenia can benefit both countries. On the Turkish side, it may get the genocide tool out of the hands of Western capitals. On the Azeri side, Turkey may have bigger leverage over Yerevan to end its occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, a part of Azerbaijan. But this is not an easy task for any Turkish politician, irrespective of their ideology, especially when Armenia and the Armenian diaspora continue encouraging Western parliaments to pass laws condemning Turkey and occupy 20 percent of Azerbaijan.
Under these circumstances, let's hope that at least civil society, the media and intellectuals on both sides can interact more and learn each other's true thoughts.
