EU Raps Turkey For Stopping Armenia Conference

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty, Czech Republic
Sept 23 2005

EU Raps Turkey For Stopping Armenia Conference

23 September 2005 (RFE/RL) — The European Commission has called a
“provocation” a Turkish court’s order to suspend an academic
conference on the 1915 massacre of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian
population.

A court in Istanbul ordered the suspension on 22 September, a day
before the start of the conference.

The EU executive’s spokeswoman for enlargement, Krisztina Nagy, said
today the timing of the decision and the absence of legal motivations
looked like “another provocation” less than two weeks before Ankara
starts entry talks with Brussels.

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn had previously described as a
provocation Turkish plans to prosecute novelist Orhan Pamuk. He faces
up to three years in jail for backing assertions that Armenians
suffered genocide at Turkish hands 90 years ago.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress