International Herald Tribune

Turkish court’s ban of Armenian conference is circumvented

The Associated Press, Reuters

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2005

ISTANBUL An Istanbul court’s decision to block a conference on the World
War I massacre of Armenians has embarrassed Turkey at a sensitive moment
and angered EU states just 10 days before the planned start of EU entry
talks.

But conference organizers moved on Friday to circumvent the ruling,
which banned it from two universities. A spokeswoman for a third
Istanbul university said it would act as the host for the conference.

Turkey has always denied claims that Ottoman Turkish forces committed
genocide against Armenians during the war, but under pressure from the
European Union it has called for historians to debate the issue, not
politicians.

The Istanbul university conference aimed to give historians that chance,
but on Friday, when the conference was due to open, the debate was
political rather than academic.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the court verdict had “nothing to do
with democracy.” Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said Turkey had only
itself to blame. “There is no one better than us when it comes to
harming ourselves,” he said.

Late on Thursday, an Istanbul court barred two universities from playing
host to the conference pending information on the qualifications of the
speakers. The court also wanted to know who was participating and who
was paying for it.

But Justice Minister Cemil Cicek later said there was nothing to stop
the conference from moving to another location.

Aydin Ugur, president of Istanbul Bilgi University, said the conference
would be held Saturday morning at Bilgi. He said the court’s order had
been directed at two other universities, and had “nothing to do with Bilgi.”

The European Commission condemned the court’s verdict.

Krisztina Nagy, the EU executive’s spokeswoman for enlargement said that
the timing of the ruling, coming a day before the conference, and the
apparent lack of legal motivation behind it “looks like yet another
provocation.”

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn previously called a Turkish court’s
plans to prosecute a best-selling novelist, Orhan Pamuk, a provocation.
Pamuk faces as much as three years in jail on charges of “denigrating
the Turkish identity” on accusations he backed claims that Armenians
suffered genocide 90 years ago. Turkey accepts many Armenians were
killed during World War I, but says they were victims of a partisan
conflict that also claimed thousands of Turkish lives. Turkey denies any
systematic genocide.

The Armenian conference had already been postponed in May after the
justice minister accused its organizers of treason.

Turkey closed its border and cut diplomatic ties with Armenia in 1993 to
protest against Armenian occupation of the territory of Azerbaijan, a
regional Turkic-speaking ally of Ankara.

Turkish academics and European Union observers have insisted that the
conference was not only a chance for Turkey to face one of the most
sensitive issues in its history, but also a test of Turkey’s willingness
to permit open discourse.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress