Agence France Presse — English
September 24, 2005 Saturday 7:36 AM GMT

Disputed conference on Armenian massacres begins in Turkey

ISTANBUL

A disputed conference questioning Turkey’s official line on the
massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire began on Saturday
amid protests by nationalist groups against the participants and the
government.

Some 30 members of the ultra-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP)
called out “cad” and booed the participants as they entered the venue
of the two-day conference which brings together academics and
intellectuals disputing Turkey’s version of the 1915-1917 massacres.

“The Armenian genocide is an international lie” read a giant banner
carried by some 150 members of the minor left-wing Workers’ Party
(IP).

“The government must resign, treason will not go unpunished,” chanted
the protestors.

Several posters depicting Turks killed by Armenians were pasted on
the security barriers surrounding the venue where some 200 police
officers were put on duty.

The conference was to have opened on Friday, but a court suspended
the event late Thursday following a complaint by a group of
nationalist lawyers who called the organizers “traitors.”

The event had already been postponed once in May when Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek branded it as “treason” and a “stab in the back
of the Turkish nation.”

But the two universities organizing the conference, Bogazici and
Sabanci, refused to back down, rescheduling the event for Saturday
and Sunday.

The conference was moved to the Bilgi University which opened its
doors for the event out of solidarity in order to circumvent the
court ruling that barred the event from taking place at the original
venue.

The court decision was heavily criticised both by the Turkish
government and the European Union with which Ankara is set to begin
accession talks on October 3.

The Armenian massacres constitute one of the most painful periods of
in the history of the two peoples.

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in
mass killings under the Ottoman Empire, forerunner to the present-day
Turkish republic.

Ankara categorically rejects claims of genocide and argues that
300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife
during World War I, when the Armenians took up arms for independence
in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the
crumbling Ottoman Empire.

The government, however, has encouraged researchers to discuss the
issue, arguing that it is a matter for historians and not politicians
to pursue.