Conference crisis
Kathimerini, Greece
May 30 2005
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday tried to defuse
a crisis over the squelching of a debate on the mass killings of
Armenians under the Ottoman Empire which has provoked concern in the
EU. A landmark conference questioning the official line on the mass
killings that had been due to open Wednesday at Istanbul’s prestigious
Bogazici University was postponed after Justice Minister Cemil Cicek
accused the participants of “treason.” “Cemil Cicek is the spokesman
of our government. He made a statement but not a statement of the
government; it was a personal statement,” Erdogan was quoted as saying
by the Anatolia news agency.