Genocide vs. geopolitics

Partly due to Europe’s reluctance to welcome Turkey as a full EU-member, Ankara has redirected its foreign policy toward the east, which in 2009 culminated in a flurry of protocols and trade agreements with countries such as Syria, Iraq and Iran. Last month’s decisions, in the United States and Sweden, to recognize the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians as genocide will do little to seduce the Turks back into the Western realm.  On March 4, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs (HCFA) passed a non-binding resolution to define the early 20th century massacres as genocide, which means the issue can now be brought to vote in the US House of Representatives. Shortly after, the Swedish parliament on March 11 voted in favor of declaring the mass killings genocide. So far, 23 countries worldwide have done so.  According to HCFA Chairman Howard Berman, a vast majority of experts, academics and authorities