Obama to visit Turkey

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier today that President Barack Obama will visit Turkey next month.

Turks have been critical of Obama for quite some time; he is ‘owned’ by the Armenian activists, which wants to use diplomacy to force Turkey into recognizing the ‘Armenian Genocide.’ The problem with this genocide thesis is, of course, that many experts believe it was nothing of the sort. Ethnic cleansing perhaps, yes, but genocide no.

Additionally, Turks know that said activists don’t merely want Turkey to accept the genocide thesis, they also want to force Turkey to give up lands and give it to Armenia – something no Turks will ever accept. Nonetheless, the fears about this end goal of Armenians’ is present in Turkish diplomatic circles, and rightly so.

Obama changed his tone somewhat since in office however. He promised Armenians activists last year he would ‘recognize’ the ‘genocide’ as president, but Turkish media reported last month already that Obama informed Turkey’s president and prime minister on the phone that he would do no such thing.

This has given Turks a far more favorable opinion of Obama, of course.

It’ll be interesting to see how this goes: Obama is reasonably popular now that he has distanced himself somewhat from his earlier position on the issue of the Armenian ‘genocide.’ He could, I think, count on a warm reception, also because Turks were passionate opponents of the war against Iraq, just like Obama was.

Then again, there are reasons to believe Obama won’t be afraid to anger Turkey. Turkey is a traditional ally of the U.S., and an important one at that. Obama has only been in power for 1.5 months, but he has already established a reputation as a president more than willing to alienate such traditional allies while reaching out to traditional enemies.

UPDATE: As usual when one dares write critical of the Armenian thesis, several comments containing nothing but ad hominem attacks were left behind by some readers. This why we have decided to close the comment section.