If you’ve followed my other blog (in Turkish) or if you follow this long enough, one thing will be clear to you.  I am not a fan of the current Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his politics.  There are many reasons for that, the one which became prominent through his recent declaration about Armenian migrants in Turkey is his bravado.  Bravado is a quality that I’d attach to a street thug, not a PM. One expects a PM to be “statesmanlike,”  but Erdogan lacks qualities of being statesmanlike and diplomatic.

Diplomacy is an art and a game; politics, likewise.  While voicing threats and putting your bargaining chips on the table are important parts of these artful games, the way you do these and the timing matter as much as the threat or the chip itself.  The way Erdogan plays this game is… well, I can’t describe it -mainly because he’s not playing the game.  He’s just there on the playground, breaking things and yelling like a fussy child, to get what he wants; he doesn’t care about the rules of the game.

If you’ve been following the news, you probably know that recently U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs has approved the Armenian Genocide resolution, days before the Swedish parliament passed a resolution on the issue.  Honestly, at this point, this is getting old for me (not the issue itself,  I’m not taking what happened lightly).  Every year, around March there’s a lot of excitement, talk, and headlines over the issue, culminating in whether the U.S. President says “genocide” in his April 24th speech, and the buzz dies.  Each year, around the same time, some parliament votes on the issue accepting or rejecting it (This is a whole different topic I don’t want to get into right now).  For the duration of the two months, it’s a beehive, and then it’s as if the colony collapsed for the rest of the year.

It’s the height of the buzz right now.  As April 24th approaches, I can imagine there’s a lot of lobbying and diplomacy going on about this.  I just know about the outcomes.  As April 24th approaches, it’s as if the current government in Turkey is not the same one that was pushing harder than any recent governments towards normalization of relationships with Armenia.  I can’t say there were huge leaps or steps forward, but there was some soccer diplomacy and talking, better than just nothing.  The PM reacts to the international developments with his usual bravado, and pours water onto the feeble foundations of the relationships over Turkey and Armenia.

And the threat: “We are turning a blind eye to the remaining 100,000 [non-Turkish citizen Armenians in Turkey]… Tomorrow, I may tell these 100,000 to go back to their country, if it becomes necessary.”  Using poor immigrant workers to get a leverage against governments/parliaments which recognize the genocide?  Leave aside how wrong it is from a moral perspective, I wonder if he ever thought how petty it is.  Just voicing this threat practically means the same thing as: “I’m so overwhelmed with foreign governments recognizing this thing against my wish, but I can’t stop them.  I tried everything within my power, but they don’t work.  I’m desperate.  I just don’t know what else I can do.  Oh, wait, there are these migrant Armenians in Turkey, I can kick them out!  Is this very clueless of me, you think?”  See, THIS is bad statesmanship!

There are a lot of legal/illegal immigrants in Turkey, originating from a lot of different countries.  I suspect most are from the former Soviet Union, but I don’t know the official statistics.  Erdogan’s threat is racist, because it targets the Armenians among all these immigrants (i.e. it is not even an overall anti-immigrant, Turkish jobs for Turks only kind of stance which is common in the U.S.).  It is outright against the Armenians.  It’s also ironic that this threat is 1915 all over again: When we cannot deal with the difficulties in our hands, we just target some people and kick them out.  I thought Erdogan’s position was that our ancestors were not the kind of people to do such a thing.

Think of possible costs and benefits for Turkey of deporting these Armenian migrants.  No foreign government or no individual will change their positions on this issue, quite the contrary, those who support these resolutions will say “Q.E.D.!” (see above).  Armenia will not start begging “Please don’t deport them, we’ll drop all our lobbying, we’ll let go of this issue!”  Yes, remittances from these migrants may be important for the Armenian economy, but not THAT much.  It will not help the Turkish position a bit.  It will only make the Turkish position and the immigrant Armenians and their families suffer.

It’s really not difficult to do this thought exercise, it doesn’t take much. How Erdogan could come to the conclusion that throwing this threat out there is a good response escapes me. Initially… Then I remember that Erdogan cares most about his domestic approval and this wouldn’t be the first time he sacrifices (or slaughters) diplomatic relationships or concerns to gain the applause of his domestic constituency (remember the whole Davos incident with Israel), and it all makes sense.  His constituency feels like a wounded wolf as a result of the US and Swedish resolutions, this little threat would be enough to make them feel alive again!

Long story short: I realize there’s a long ongoing diplomatic struggle taking place and I realize that a leader can’t go wrong with nationalist discourse aiming for popularity in Turkey, but leave the poor immigrants out of it.  It’s embarrassing to see a PM sink this low in desperation.

Related news piece from BBC.