Real gems from our dear CB

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Sep 19, 2007 at 17:41

Our dear CB wrote this little gem

It is true that many ethnic Turks in Turkey have Greek, Armenian or Syrian roots, however whether you like it or not they do not conceive themselves as anything else but ethnic Turks.

So?

A Turk is still Turk whether his ancestors were Turks from Central Asia, Greeks, Tatars, Arabs, Syrians, Persians, Armenians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Croatians etc. I really hope that one day Turks will become more aware about their non-Turkish ancestors and more open to the cultural heritage of peoples that lived in Anatolia before Turkification, but it does not signify that they will cease to be Turks.

Let me correct you: Wannabe Turks which is even more bizarre and dangerous. They are not unlike Pakistanis that will never admit that their ancestors were Hindus and not Arabs but they become wannabe Arabs and deny the past and their own heritage

As for Turkish relations with Greece, they were settled by the treaty on mutual exchange of populations and through Lausanne treaty,

No we have not seen the end of it and if Turkey join a democracy and that is the EU the Greeks should lay claim to all of Turkey and for occupied Constantinople

so that biggest unregulated problem now is the Cyprus problem. Greeks cannot claim any "return to their own lands" in Anatolia since they themselves accepted the mutual population exchange.

We shall see

As the treaty of Lausanne effectively closed the Armenian issue and established definite eastern borders of Turkey, I do not think that either Armenians could hope to have any chance to return to lands belonging to Turkey.

You have lived in a Communist country for too long and you do not seem to be aware of how democracies function. I can assure you that if Turkey is to join the EU you will have both Armenians and Greeks demanding the right to return and or compensation. And I suepct that the Turks already know that

What Greeks and Armenians could really claim, are the damages for the invasion in Cyprus and the damages for incidents with Greek and Armenian minorities after 1923.

What incidents are you talking about? In 1922 almost 1-2M Greeks were expelled from Asia Minor and have never been compensated for such atrocity

Probably Armenians can have some hopes for pressing their issue about the Genocide and if Turkey finally yields to international pressure, for claiming compensation from Turkey as the heir of the Ottoman empire.

I hope they do

There are however some problems with Armenian claims about Genocide.

And they are?And it is not a claim about a Genocide it is a real genocide. Shame on you for calling it a claim.

Turks can retort that Armenians have already taken their revenge from Turks and that their current pretensions for the recognition of Genocide is only the mask for territorial claims .

Bogus and shame on you for saying that. You are balming the victims. Shame on you

During 1916-1918 when Eastern Anatolia was occupied by Russian Army and later in 1918-1920 when Kars region was administered by the shortlived Republic of Armenia, Armenian troops in Russian army and irregular Armenian militias indeed treated Muslims of Eastern Anatolia very harshly and it is not difficult to understand why. However, by taking revenge, Armenians seriously compromised their moral position.

Bogus again. No one can kill and butcher innocent civilians and get away with it and then have the audacity to blame the victims. Shame on you for blaming the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".