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Chapter 9 concerns itself with the Armenian genocide and others, as well as the ethnic cleansings that took place before and after the founding of the modern Turkish state, as documented by Taner Akcam and others. This problem is particular unsettling, for it concerns the very identity of the Turkish state and Turkishness. Debating this is punishable in Turkey under article 301, and, as in the case of the late Hrant Dink, can have serious consequences.
The Turkish attitude to the Armenian genocide can, in principle, be compared to a hypothetical situation where Germany would officially justify the Holocaust by denigrating Jews, ban dissenting opinion, and praise the architects of the Holocaust as national heroes. Respect for and protection of minorities is an explicit item in the Copenhagen Criteria. The Armenians are not getting either.
Chapter 9 also includes this memorable quote, adopted by the European Parliament in 1987:
The European Parliament believes that the refusal by the present Turkish Government to acknowledge the genocide against the Armenian people committed by the Young Turk government, its reluctance to apply the principles of international law in differences of opinion with Greece, the maintenance of Turkish occupation forces in Cyprus and the denial of the existence of the Kurdish question, together with the lack of true parliamentary democracy and the failure to respect individual and collective freedoms, in particular freedom of religion, in that country are insurmountable obstacles to consideration of the possibility of Turkey's accession to the Community.
Not a single of these problems issues had been solved when Turkey was granted candidate status. Even now, at the end of 2008, no solid solution seems in sight for any of these problems.
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