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Turkey awaits Obama’s Armenian statement

Former Turkish ambassadors to Washington say there are limits to what Ankara can do if President Barack Obama refers to Armenian massacres as genocide.
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) speaks with Chief Rabbi of Istanbul Isak Haleva and Armenian Patriarch for all Turkey Mesrob II Archbishop Aram Stesyan (R) during a meeting with religious leaders in Istanbul April 7, 2009. REUTERS/Jim Young (TURKEY POLITICS RELIGION) - RTXDQ66

It’s betting season again for Turkish-US ties. Will US President Barack Obama use the “G-word” on April 24 in his message of sympathy to the Armenians, or will he skirt the issue and use the term Meds Yeghern — which in Armenian means the Great Crime — instead of genocide to describe what befell the Armenians in 1915?

Should he go for the latter option, as he has done before, Ankara will still protest and refer to the need for “justice in remembrance,” pointing in this way to the millions of non-Armenians killed in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It has, however, learned to live with statements that do not openly refer to genocide.

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