At first sight it may seem a bit childish, but that is how the most serious and even incendiary political issues are handled in today’s Turkish diplomacy. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, comparing the attendance in terms of arithmetic between the centennial of the Armenian genocide in Yerevan and the centennial ceremonies of the Gallipoli campaign in the city of Canakkale (Dardanelles), said, “Thank God 20 heads of state came to ours, while two went to theirs.”
The calculation needs a slight correction: The number of heads of states at Yerevan was four, with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Francois Hollande of France and the presidents of Serbia and Cyprus, while the number who attended the Canakkale-Gallipoli event hosted by Erdogan was around 17.
