The two images above are opposing images of actors in the Armenian genocide in 1914 and 1915 in the Ottoman Empire, yet a Western-Orientalist belief system undergirds them both. Do the beliefs that led to the massacres of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians over one hundred years ago still persist in Turkey today, and if so, to what degree? How important are ontological views about minority accommodation - whether defined by ethnicity, religion, culture - for determining the politics of policy-making in Turkey? One thing is for certain - the belief systems here are complicated. Disentangling how competing beliefs about minorities and their accommodation play out at the elite level is highly policy-relevant, as the current situation with the decision to join the international coalition fighting ISIS by the Turkish government shows. Should it support its Sunni brothers - and if so, the Syrian Kurds, who could align with Iraqi and Turkish Kurds to form a more powerful player against the Turkish state? Ethnic, religious, and cultural cleavages all play into whether and how Turkey can align with the security alliance it committed to through NATO accession.
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