Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, has warned that he might deport up to 100,000 Armenians living in Turkey without citizenship, after resolutions passed by U.S. and Swedish lawmakers defining World War One-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.
"I don't have to keep them in my country," Erdogan said.
Surely a deplorable statement, but not in the way that Armenia and the Armenian lobby have instantly jumped to abuse...
Many pro-Armenian websites have started to propagate that these words remind them of the tragedy in 1915, of course, with some fabricated images of the so-called genocide.
In reality, Erdogan's statement has got nothing to do with Turkish Armenians. He solely means the Armenian citizens who had entered Turkey in illegal means to work without permit.
It is indeed unfair to use these poor illegal immigrants as a political leverage; but it is totally justified.
Erdogan does not speak like Adolf Hitler, unlike what some Armenians have suggested today. (Should I also remind you the fact that Turkey was saving European Jews while many Armenians in Europe were supporting the Nazi government?)
If the Armenian diaspora has a problem with this language and this political style, they should first look around.
They would see somebody familiar, hanging around the Elysee Palace, thanks to some of their own votes in France.
Yes, Erdogan speaks more like Nicolas Sarkozy and this is the newly-created sans-papiers issue of the AKP government...
So now, with a traumatic history, a disastrous economy and a shamelessly pragmatic Turkish Sarkozy in charge, Ankara is finally ready to be a member of the European Union.
