Killing of Armenian journalist sends Turkey into despair

The killing yesterday of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrank Dink has caused widespread anger and despair in a broad spectrum of the Turkish media.

Dink was a leader of the tiny Armenian community in Turkey. As chief editor of the Armenian-language paper Agos, he led the calls for an official recognition of the killing of Armenians in 1915. However, he also subscribed to an Ottoman view of co-existence, frequently praising the multicultural experience of the empire and criticizing the nationalism of the republic that followed it.

Some 20 national networks and tens of cable/satellite channels have cut their normal running orders to report and comment on the murder of the Armenian author.

While most Turks had disagreed with Dink's position on the alleged genocide, and many strongly criticized him for that, yesterday the national mood was one of disbelief and total disapproval of the crime.

Dink was tried last year for having insulted "Turkishness" and his court hearing witnessed verbal and physical abuse toward the defendant. The same streets that saw insults hurled at the Armenian publisher were in a very different mood yesterday. Thousands filled the district around his home to shout their support for Dink's freedom of speech.

Whodunnit and why?

On the multitude of television channels, pundits were at pains to explain what might have happened.

Some suggested that this was an attempt to push the country into chaos in the run up to presidential elections in Spring.

Others said the cold-blooded murder must have intended to derail Turkey's European accession process.

Not everyone believes in complicated conspiracy theories. Yalim Eralp, a former ambassador and a doyen of Turkish foreign affairs blamed the culture of intolerance in the country.

Columnists like Ali Bayramoglu, a close friend of Dink's, completed the picture by saying that hatred toward the Argos publisher was little different from intolerance of Kurdish or Islamic cultural aspirations.

Dink's best friend Etyen Mahcupyan, another Turkish columnist of Armenian creed, was notably absent from television screens.

Columnists Yalcin Dogan, Altan Oymen and Derya Sazak, the big whigs of the leading media group Dogan, expressed dismay and felt nothing could clean up the huge mess that was made by the murder. "I am fed up with official statements," Dogan said. Sazak reminded of the countless political murders in the past and said nothing came of investigations into them.

Fehmi Koru of daily Yeni Safak, known to be a close political ally of the foreign minister Abdullah Guel, implied that the murder might be a message to Turkey to mind its own affairs and stay away from Kirkuk. Koru somewhat contradicted himself because he also saw the development as an attempt to "drag Turkey into the quagmire of the Middle East."

Not a good day for official Turkey

It was certainly noteworthy that the state-run TRT was debating the issue of Kirkuk rather than spending as much time on the Dink murder as commercial channels. It's unclear what the state TV wanted to achieve by such a debate on such a day. However, it was obvious that the picture of Kirkuk was too complicated to be simplified into the official arguments. A former London ambassador, Ozdem Samberk, was careful to note that while the Turkmens of Kirkuk were Turks' blood brothers, the Kurds of Iraq were not our enemies, on the contrary, they were quite close relatives too.

That remark by Samberk came only two days after the former deputy head of the Turkish intelligence said in a newspaper interview that Turkey's official approach to the Kurdish question was a massive failure.

Official Turkey was wrong in its interpretation of the slain journalist's intentions and was wrong to try him on a flimsy charge.

Perhaps this will be remembered as the day when official Turkey has lost the argument for intolerance and authoritarianism. Even it's officials are no longer defending it let alone believing it.

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