Pope Francis hopes for better ties between Turks, Armenians
Odds appear stacked against Pope Francis’ desire for the Turkish and Armenian nations to overcome their historic differences and achieve reconciliation.
Turkish-Armenian relations were back on the agenda again, if only momentarily, after Pope Francis expressed his “dream” last week of seeing the border between the two countries reopened to contribute to reconciliation between the two estranged nations.
Prospects for the pope’s dream, however, looked dim as Turkish analysts indicated that little progress has been made in resolving the issues that divided the sides. Meanwhile, Ankara is bracing itself against the campaign by the Armenian diaspora in the United States to make 2015 the year when the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 under the Ottoman Turkish government is finally recognized by Washington as genocide.
Remarks by Turkish officials show that there is real concern in Ankara that these efforts may succeed on the centenary of the killings. Armenians, with significant international support, say the events of 1915 amounted to a genocide resulting in the death of 1.5 million Armenians in Anatolia, a claim that Turkey rejects.
Although it acknowledges that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died during World War I, Turkey says millions of Muslims, including Turks, Kurds and Arabs, also lost their lives during the war.
