BY GAREN YEGPARIAN
I was catching up on some reading when I ran a cross a news item from late March of this year. It seems one Mehmet Erdogan, an AKP member of Turkey’s parliament, claimed that if the 2015 coup had succeeded, Turkey would have been dismembered and four new countries created in its place: Armenia, Kurdistan, Constantinople/Bolis (as a city-state), and an Anatolian home for Turks. But, heck, he forgot Greece and Assyria! Maybe he plans on death marching Turkey’s few remaining Assyrians southward towards their ancient capital, Kalhu/Nimrud.
Absurd, conspiracy-mongering, delusional, fantastic, farcical, funny, improbable, ludicrous, ridiculous, zany as this assertion may seem, I have no doubt it got some traction in Turkey. But the point I want to make requires a quick, single-question test”” what do the product of Mehmet’s fevered imagination and the following few points have in common?
Anti-Armenian hate graffiti on Armenian institutions in Bolis (and elsewhere).
Building a toilet atop an Armenian cemetery Van.
Claiming that the PKK is composed of many Armenians, not just Kurds.
Tearing down an Armenian-Turkish “friendship”
