An unexpurgated heritage: the chapel of the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul. Flickr / John Lubbock. Some rights reserved.
With the centenary of the onset of the Armenian genocide less than two months away, the economically aggrandising but politically repressive Turkish state needs to take stock—for the sake of its international relations as well as its domestic rapport with its minority communities.
Although many Turks now accept that hundreds of thousands of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks were massacred during the first world war, their government is increasingly unwilling to negotiate with Armenia to establish diplomatic relations and reopen the land border. Reconciliation is a low priority as the executive seeks to increase its authority over the remaining semi-independent state institutions, like the central bank and the judiciary. In the run-up to important elections in June, the ruling AK Party cannot afford to alienate its base of nationalistic, religious Turks or divert its attention from the Kurdish peace process—around 3.5m Kurds vote for it.
