!� face="Verdana" size="2">After the 1878 Berlin Agreement the Armenians struggled to gain independence from the Ottomans, following the example set by the Christians in the Balkan region. The Armenians were right in expecting that they too would get help in that struggle. The big powers had their own interests to protect, and the aspirations of the Christian communities in the Ottoman realm happened to be in line with these interests.

  However, the Armenians proved unfortunate because, compared to the Balkan Christians, they were living in an area far more distant from Europe and also because they were dependent on Russia. Russia had helped carve the Balkans out of the Ottoman realm. However, it had failed to incorporate the Balkans into the Russian Empire. The case of the Armenians' struggle for independence was different in that Russia used that struggle to seize the Ottoman lands inhabited by the Armenians. In its war with the Ottomans in the eastern parts of Anatolia, Russia made use of Armenian gangs. Later, Russia withdrew from World War I due to the Bolshevik Revolution, and that development sealed the Armenians' fate. Meanwhile, the other great powers did not exert much effort to prevent that what they had given to the Armenians under the Sevres Treaty from being returned to the Turks under the Lausanne Treaty.

  The problem was thus shelved until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of the newly independent former Soviet republics, only Armenia has fought with a neighbor and occupied a significant part of its territory. As a result, 1 million Azeris have been “condemned” to live in camps as if in another Palestine. With the conviction that the Armenians had suffered greatly in the past, the international community has not put too much pressure on them to make them withdraw from Azerbaijani territory. The Minsk Process, initiated in 1992 within the framework of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, marked time.

  Although Turkey was one of the first countries that recognized Armenia's independence and rushed to its aid, the failure to establish diplomatic relations during the Ter Petrosyan era was a mistake. When the Dashnak Party's Kocharyan, who is from the Nagorno-Karabagh region, came to power animosity began on a platform of genocide claims. Armenia drifted away from democracy. Its economy has gone under. Some of its population has left the country. Having failed to develop its relations with the United States, Armenia has become fully dependent on Russia.

  The first sign indicating that the honeymoon with Armenia is over came from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. With a decision it made recently it declared Armenia to be the aggressor and announced that Nagorno-Karabagh did not have the right to self-determination.

  Now Armenia is trying to push Turkey into a corner on the “90th anniversary of the genocide” due partly to the pressure exerted by the irrational Armenian Diaspora. The Armenians had urged the European Union's Dec. 17, 2004 summit not to give Turkey a date for the start of accession talks unless Turkey acknowledged the “genocide.” Yerevan was greatly disappointed when that did not happen; however, France came to their aid.

  During a visit to Ankara last week French parliamentary speaker Debre warned that if Turkey did not find a solution to the problem, the Turkish EU bid for membership could be rejected in the referendum to be held in France. Other French officials also say that the genocide issue is on the negotiating table.

  French politicians have to think of the Armenian vote. A considerable part of French voters believe that genocide did take place. All of them use the Armenian genocide issue to obstruct Turkish membership to the EU. According to Kant the greatest immorality would be using another person to further your own aims. Do the Armenians fail to see this simple reality? They definitely must see it; however, they have arrived at the present day while seeing all these untruths and they obviously believe they can go on like this.

  The chorus of former leftists/new liberals in Turkey also may be deceiving them. In the recent past those circles had waged campaigns aimed at portraying Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Denktas as an “enemy of peace” and the Greek Cypriots as the “friends of peace.” It is now seen how wrong they were. Their argument that when Turkey fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria the EU would start accession talks with Turkey unconditionally has been disproved.

  However, just like anybody else who is suffering from an erosion of identity, they lack the strength to realize their mistakes and to change their attitude. Their intellectual capacity does not suffice to enable them to understand that their saying “mea culpa” on behalf of Turkey stems from their own nihilist reasons rather than from historical realities. They rationalize their desire to have the “genocide” acknowledged by saying that this is the prerequisite of being an intellectual, of intellectual integrity and of having social courage.

  Let's just hope that the Armenians won't let themselves be used -- at least not by the aforementioned circles in Turkey.