AKI, Italy
Aug 24 2005

TURKEY: NEW DATE SET FOR CONTROVERSIAL ARMENIAN CONFERENCE

Istanbul, 24 August (AKI) – A new date has been set for a conference
questioning Turkey’s official policy that the 1915-21 mass killing of
Armenians under Ottoman rule never took place. The conference,
initially scheduled for May, but postponed after Turkish justice
minister branded it “a dagger in the back of the the Turkish people,”
will be held at Istanbul’s Bogazici University, on September 23-25.

On Wednesday there were conflicting reports on whether Turkish
foreign minister Abdullah Gul would open the conference, entitled
‘Ottoman Era Armenians During the Collapse of the Empire:
Intellectual Responsibility and Democratic Problems’.

Bogazici University Rector Ayse Soysal has invited Gul and, according
to some reports the minister accepted the invitiation, but others
said the foreign ministry had indicated Gul would not be present
because of official commitments abroad.

Lasting two days, with 12 sessions, and featuring the participation
of 38 academics, the conference will have panels discussing topics
such as ‘Deportation and Massacre’, ‘Disaster and Rescue Stories’,
‘Memories and Witnesses’, and ‘Things the World Knew that Turkey did
not Know’.

When the conference was first slated, it provoked outrage among
Turkish nationalists, especially after some would-be participants
said they would challenge the commonly held view in Turkey that the
deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians was due to epidemics and
other hardships suffered when Armenian militants, who joined sides
with Turkey’s World War I enemy Russia, were deported and forced on
long marches.

Many historians believe that the Armenian deaths were due to the
genocide policies of the Ottoman rulers.

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