Agence France Presse
May 26 2005
Ankara Under Fire Over Armenian Conference Cancellation
By Sibel Utku Bila
(AFP) – Turkey came under fire Thursday for halting a landmark
conference questioning the official line on the mass killings of
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, as European Union diplomats
warned that Ankara’s democratic credentials had taken a serious blow.
Istanbul’s prestigious Bogazici University, where the gathering was
to open Wednesday, put off the event after Justice Minister Cemil
Cicek accused the participants — Turkish academics and intellectuals
who dispute Ankara’s version of the 1915-1917 massacres — of
“treason.” Cicek condemned the initiative as “a stab in the back to
the Turkish nation” and said the organizers deserved to be
prosecuted.
The killings, one of the most controversial episodes in Ottoman
history, is rarely discussed in schools and the aborted conference
would have been the first by Turkish personalities to question the
official stand on the events. Several countries have recognized the
massacres as genocide — a theory Turkey fiercely rejects — and
Brussels has urged Ankara to face its past and expand freedom of
speech.
“The remarks of the justice minister are unacceptable. This is an
authoritarian approach raising questions over Turkey’s reform
process,” a diplomat from an EU country told AFP on the condition of
anonymity.
“Now it is a real watershed. We expect government action to correct
Cicek’s remarks,” he said. “It’s up to the government to decide what
to do. Doing nothing would be also a choice, but certainly not in
favor of Turkey’s EU membership prospects.”
Another EU diplomat regretted the postponement of the conference
because it “would have reflected the evolution taking place in
Turkish society.” The EU is looking forward for the conference to be
rescheduled, he said, adding: “The Europeans will keep on insisting
that civil society has a great role to play in Turkey.”
The Turkish media too lashed out at the justice minister, saying his
outburst cast a pall on freedom of expression in the country and
played into the hands of a mounting Armenian campaign to have the
massacres recognized internationally as genocide.
“Zero tolerance to freedom,” the Radikal daily trumpeted on its front
page, while Milliyet’s headline declared: “Democracy takes a blow.”
“What, really, is treason? To hold a conference in order to start a
debate in Turkey on a Turkish problem debated almost everywhere in
the world, or to brand as ‘traitors’ people who may think differently
at a time when Turkey is waging a battle for democracy in the face of
many obstacles?” wrote columnist Murat Celikkan in Radikal.
“Cemil Cicek should resign as justice minister and if does not, he
should be forced to do so,” he said.