It looked like an Armenian spoof for April Fool’s Day released too early, but it had been emailed to me by a reliable source and read like a typical BBC report. It said that the Turkish Ministry of the Environment had changed the scientific names of three animals found in the eastern region of the country because they had been named by Europeans to harm Turkish unity and to imply that Armenians and Kurds had once lived in the region.

But it seemed self-defeating for the Turkish Government to indulge in such luxuries when it had only recently won a date for the start of admission talks with the European Union. Everything about the decision reminded one of the mindset of the generals who last overthrew an elected Government in