Armenian deportation remarks draw ire locally and abroad

“Look, there are 170,000 Armenians in my country -- 70,000 of them are my citizens, but we are [tolerating] 100,000 of them [illegally] in our country. So, what will we do tomorrow? If it is necessary, I will tell them, ‘Come on, back to your country.’ I will do it. Why? They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country. I mean these are [defenders of the Armenian claims of genocide]. Their attitude is negatively affecting our sincere attitude, and they are not aware of it,” Erdoğan told the BBC Turkish service in an interview on Tuesday.

Erdoğan’s comments met with a stern reaction from Armenia. “This kind of political statement does not help improve relations between the two states,” said Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarksyan. “I agree with the assessment that when the Turkish prime minister allows himself to make such statements, the events of 1915 immediately return to our memory,” he added.

Thousands of illegal Armenian immigrants, mostly women from the impoverished countryside, work as cleaning ladies and in other low-skilled jobs in İstanbul, where many settled after an earthquake in their homeland in 1988. The exact number of Armenian immigrants in Turkey is unknown. But Turkish-Armenian groups say Turkish politicians inflate the numbers of illegal workers and threaten expulsions whenever tensions escalate between Ankara and Yerevan.

In Ankara, Deniz Baykal, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), called Erdoğan’s remarks “grave” and “against human rights.”

“Wanting to use people who came to Turkey for work as a trump card in the resolution of a dispute is definitely unacceptable and is against human rights. Various people may have some ideas, an opposition party deputy may also say something [similar], but these are not statements that have results -- perhaps you can call them inappropriate statements. But when a prime minister, a person who has the authority to deport them, says such things, then it is very grave,” Baykal told his party’s parliamentary group meeting on Wednesday.

Back in October 2006, upon the adoption of a French bill criminalizing the denial of the alleged genocide of Armenians, CHP deputy Şükrü Elekdağ, a former Turkish ambassador to the US, had called for sanctions on Armenia, which he said was working in cooperation with the Armenian diaspora for international recognition of the alleged genocide and said that some Armenian illegal workers should be deported.

In İstanbul, the Young Civilians, a civil society group known for its creative demonstrations in support of democracy, held a protest on İstiklal Street, in a show of protest against the prime minister. The group digitally edited a photograph of Talat Paşa to include photos of Erdoğan and Canan Arıtman of the CHP, who also suggested deporting Armenian workers in Turkey.

“Let’s send them via the Erzurum-Kars route, barefoot,” text on the photo read, in apparent reference to the 1915 forced emigration of Anatolian Armenians. Armenians were forcefully expelled to the Syrian desert in 1915 upon orders from Talat Paşa.