Recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey is a matter of time: Lithuanian President

The President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda, has expressed the opinion that recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey is a matter of time, and that one day it will happen. In an interview with Delfi journalist Vladimiras Laučius, the Lithuanian president addressed various issues, including Turkey-NATO and Turkey-EU relations. Below is an excerpt from the interview.

Vladimiras Laučius: You emphasize common values as the foundation of ‘friendship alliances.’ But what do you think about Turkey? Erdoğan openly threatens Europe and urges Turks to have many children so that they become ‘the future of Europe’; his army attacks the Kurds and NATO allies. Turkey is undergoing Islamization and rapidly distancing itself from the values on which NATO was founded and is meant to uphold. Does the West agree with ‘this’ Turkey, considering Russia's distancing from Western values?

Gitanas Nausėda: This is a very complex question. In fact, Turkey is changing. We see quite aggressive actions that destabilize the region. In this regard, the question arises: will the West achieve any positive results by distancing itself from Turkey or making any decisions regarding its NATO membership? The question is whether this will bring more peace to the region and the world in general. Nevertheless, Turkey’s role in the region, in terms of both refugees and military power, continues to be crucial. Perhaps at this moment, it is necessary to openly address the issues raised by Turkey while also monitoring the situation and drawing conclusions about what might happen in the future, without making any radical decisions, as Turkey’s role remains very significant due to the factors I mentioned.

Vladimiras Laučius: Turkey is a NATO member that has committed the Armenian Genocide and has been recognized by Lithuania and recently by the U.S. House of Representatives. Can you imagine a situation where a state that does not recognize the Holocaust is a NATO member?

Gitanas Nausėda: No, I cannot. However, regarding this issue (recognition of the Armenian Genocide), I still believe it is a matter of time, and it will happen one day. Perhaps it will not happen very soon, especially since it is difficult to expect it to occur in the next five or ten years, but I think it will be recognized one way or another because it is a fact.

After the interview, Vladimiras Laučius published an article in Delfi addressing Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide, the incompatibility of Turkey’s NATO membership, human rights violations in Turkey, and many other issues.

Vladimiras Laučius on Turkey’s NATO membership: It would be unimaginable for Germany to be part of NATO if it did not acknowledge Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust. However, Turkey, which is unwilling to admit that it committed genocide against Christian nations such as Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, is a NATO member.

The preamble of the North Atlantic Treaty states that the parties to the treaty “are determined to safeguard the freedom of their peoples, their common heritage and civilization, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.” Which of these principles does Turkey uphold? Is it succeeding in doing so? How can it uphold the civilization to which it does not belong or maintain the principles that are barely followed in that country? If all it takes to join NATO is a strong army, apparent democracy, and some common interests with Western nations, then how is it that Russia is still not part of NATO?

Some might say that Russia violates the principles of sovereignty in South Ossetia and Ukraine; however, this does not seem to pose an insurmountable moral and legal problem for NATO countries since 1974, when Turkish troops occupied Northern Cyprus. Now Turkey is also occupying parts of Syria and negotiating with Russia regarding buffer zones.

And what about the issue of armament and military compatibility? After Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems and Su-57 fighter jets, it seems that Russia’s integration into NATO is no longer a serious obstacle. It is clear that arms acquisition and indirect integration through Turkey are already underway.

Russian authorities do not recognize Soviet crimes and justify Stalin’s atrocities. Turkey does exactly the same, refusing to acknowledge that it planned and executed the genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks through mass killings, torture, and desert exile. Moreover, Turkish legislation allows for the prosecution of those who assert that genocides were committed by Turks, claiming it offends the Turkish people. This is very similar to Vladimir Putin’s Russian law and the ideological propaganda of that country’s history.

The genocide of Christian peoples in Turkey, in terms of brutality, torture, and ideological justification, is very similar to the Jewish Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. For example, a well-known doctor in the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed Reshid, was infamous for treating Armenians as second-class citizens, inferior to what he deemed more advanced Muslims. He ordered to subject Armenian exiles to live torturous experiences to entertain watching them on the road to exile. He also enjoyed crucifying them because of their Armenian faith. In 1978, in Turkey, a NATO member country, an encyclopedia was published describing Mehmed Reshid as a “great patriot.” Like their Nazi future partners, Turkish doctors conducted gruesome experiments on “second-class” people. For instance, they injected Armenians with the blood of typhoid fever patients to search for a vaccine against it. A museum was even built in Istanbul for this infamous doctor, who is considered the father of Turkish bacteriology.

The head of the Trabzon health department, Ali Saib, diligently fulfilled his professional duty by forcing pregnant Armenian women and children to drink poison, while those refusing were drowned at sea. Saib enjoyed injecting mortally dangerous doses of morphine to Armenian exiles who had miraculously survived the terrible journey through the desert. He also killed children in mobile hot vapor baths.

Today in Turkey, streets and significant public places are named after the architects of genocide: Talat, Jemal, Enver. It would be interesting if another NATO member, Germany, were to name streets after, for example, Himmler.

The primary issue with Turkey’s NATO membership is not that it obstructs Baltic defense plans, buys Russian S-400s while refusing American weaponry, supports DAESH and Jabhat al-Nusra fighters, occupies Syrian territories, and destroys the remnants of Christian communities in Asia Minor together with its Arab allies. The main issue is not that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan envisions a demographic and cultural reincarnation of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, where the high birth rate of the Turkish population could impose its own rules. The main issue is not found in Turkey’s actions, aims, political and social realities, or its attitude toward the West -- which should not surprise anyone given history over the centuries. The issue lies not in Turkey’s approach, but in the Western one.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars has officially recognized the genocides committed by Turkey against Christians: Armenians (at least 1.5 million killed), Greeks (approximately 750,000 murdered), and Assyrians (around 300,000 victims). The Armenian Genocide has also been recognized by the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, and recently the U.S. House of Representatives. It has been recognized by several NATO member countries, including Lithuania. Criminal prosecution for denying the Armenian Genocide is provided for in Switzerland, Slovakia, Greece, and Cyprus. Slovakia and Greece are NATO members, just like Turkey, which stubbornly denies the genocide. This is a kind of phantasmagoria. Do you still think that the aforementioned countries belong to a common civilization, a common heritage, and common principles?

Regarding this situation, Turkey and its allies do not yet face particular problems. Many even rejoice and apparently take pride in having such an ally with a common (Lord save me) legacy. It is true that Turkey was an important counterweight to the USSR during the Cold War, and one should suppose that Turkey still has not entered the European Union for reasons not without foundation. There was a time when there was hope that the situation in Turkey would improve. Instead, it worsened. Thus, the further it goes, the harder it becomes to explain and justify the deepening value gap.

Continuing a conciliatory approach would be even more hypocritical than the silence that has existed around the genocide issue, selected amnesia, and the unwillingness to speak about what could cause discomfort or is useless for Turkish friends. Such an attitude, to put it mildly, does not honor them. This approach partially coincides with what Adolf Hitler allegedly said in 1939 when sharing his plans for the destruction of the Poles: 'In the end, who remembers today the extermination of the Armenians?' In other words, no one cares. And do those who stand up for Western values not have a duty to reflect on this?