By Emma Farge and Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (Reuters) – The Lausanne Accords that shaped modern Turkey are still cherished by some but remain a disappointment to others including Kurds and Armenians who hope for independent territories and justice for Ottoman-era crimes.
Some of those words are included in the exhibition called “Borders” – put on by the Swiss city’s history museum to look at the importance of the post-World War I agreement 100 years after it was signed between Turkey and allied countries such as Britain and France on July 24, 1923.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan recalled the memorial in a statement last year, praising its features and saying Turkey had carefully monitored its implementation.
Sevgi Koyuncu, who was born in a Kurdish village and now works in Lausanne, said his people were “not wanted by the assembly” in an interview posted at the palace where it was signed.
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About 6,000 Kurdish protesters marched through the city on Saturday, waving flags and forming human chains.
For Manuschak Karnusian, a Swiss resident whose Armenian grandparents fled what is now Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century with the help of missionaries and French warships, the deal is like a “second genocide”.
He was referring to the 1915 genocide and forced expulsion of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire – an event now labeled a genocide but denied by Turkey, which says thousands of Turks and Armenians died in ethnic violence.
“You can’t forget. You have to show what this (agreement) means,” Karnusian told Reuters, saying it represents “the origin of the denial of what is happening” to Armenians.
While the agreement was hailed at the time as an opportunity for lasting peace, some of its outcomes, such as the exchange of more than 1.5 million Greeks and Turks, are now seen as “a terrible mistake”, said Jonathan Conlin, a historian in a project looking at the legacy of the agreement.
“I think (the treaty) has endured because everyone is not equally happy about it,” he said.
(Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
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