How Turkey successfully averted a crisis with the Vatican

The good news came through a column. Hürriyet columnist Fatih Çekirge opened his piece, ?How Turkey?s crisis with the Christian world was averted,? on March 30, datelined ?The Vatican,? by relieving everyone: ?Let?s first break the news. Turkey and the Christian world have gone through a serious crisis over Apr. 24 [the anniversary of the Armenian genocide]. And that crisis was averted at the last minute.? 

Mr. Çekirge then mentions a dinner he had attended as a guest at the Piazza San Pietro in the Vatican, luckily sitting next to Turkey?s ambassador to the Catholic city-state. The columnist praised the Turkish ambassador, Professor Mehmet Paçac?: ?It has been so useful to appoint a theologian with credible intellectuality as ambassador to the Vatican instead of [just] a diplomat.? Mr. Çekirge finally leaves the floor to a quote from Ambassador Paçac?: ?If the Pope decided to go to Yerevan on Apr. 24, a serious crisis would have erupted. But this will not happen [thanks to] Turkey?s influence.?

This was excellent news. Except that the crisis the theologian/ambassador said had been averted was just rescheduled from Apr. 24 to Apr. 12. The boring-and-amusing Turkish pastime that blends childish doses of self-deception with unfounded self-confidence repeated itself when the Holy See labelled the tragic events of 1915-1920 as the first genocide of the 20th century, and, consequently, the highly intellectual theologian/ambassador, Mr. Paçac?, was recalled by Ankara. 

All of which reminded this columnist of an entry in the first episode of the ?Headlines from the centennial!? series: ?Turkey threatens to freeze its diplomatic ties with the 96 countries where Armenian genocide denial is a crime unless they reduced prison sentences for this...