True colours

Turks must be happy now that Obama has won. At least the latest polls showed that the majority of Turks would prefer Obama to be president rather than McCain. Not so surprising, but let’s now compare both (former) candidates on their stance regarding the Armenian issue. Armenians in diaspora in the USA strongly advocate a bill that would classify the mass killings of Armenians in the late days of the Ottoman Empire as ‘genocide’, which would lead to a total break in relations between Turkey and the USA. And who made promises to Armenians to support such a bill? Barack Obama did. In the spring of next year, this bill will be discussed again in the States, and then Obama will have to show his true colours on this issue. It’s not likely that he would really make an effort to get the genocide bill passed, because it’s totally against America’s interest to alienate Turkey right now. How he will handle this breach of promise with the diaspora Armenians will be interesting to keep a close watch on.