Reader Photo: Genocide activists should stop making the situation for Armenia worse

To the editor: Matt Welch, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, joins the right-wing crowd by bashing Hillary Clinton for the so-called flip-flop regarding Turkey and the Armenian genocide. (“Why Washington continues to equivocate on the Armenian genocide,” Opinion, April 22)

Like most people, Welch fails to realize that friendship in the Middle East is transactional. You can buy it today, sell it tomorrow and buy it back on the next day. For example, whereas Joseph Stalin favored Azerbaijan over Armenia with respect to the fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, subsequent Russian regimes reversed that trend.

Armenia is a small, poor country surrounded by unfriendly regimes. To survive economically, it has made overtures to Turkey for more friendly relations. It doesn’t need Welch to make things more difficult.

George C. Shahinian, Huntington Beach

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