Bangkok Post, Thailand
May 27 2005

Turkish democracy under fire

Ankara _ Turkey came under fire yesterday for halting a landmark
conference questioning the official line on the mass killings of
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, as EU diplomats warned that
Ankara’s democratic credentials had taken a serious blow.

Istanbul’s prestigious Bogazici University, where the gathering was
to open on 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”.

Mr Cicek condemned the initiative as “a stab in the back to the
Turkish nation” and said the organisers 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 recognised 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 said on condition of
anonymity.

“Now it is a real watershed. We expect government action to correct
Mr Cicek’s remarks,” he said. “It’s up to the government to decide
what to do. Doing nothing would also be a choice, but certainly not
in favour of Turkey’s EU membership prospects.” The incident follows
a brutal police clampdown on a women’s demonstration in Istanbul in
March, which raised tensions between Turkey and the EU.

It also coincides with increasing criticism at home that Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, a conservative movement
with Islamist roots, has lost its reform drive since winning a date
in December for accession talks scheduled to start on Oct 3.