Gulf Times, Qatar
Sept 24 2005
Summit on Armenian massacres goes ahead
Published: Saturday, 24 September, 2005, 10:37 AM Doha Time
ISTANBUL: A conference on the massacres of Armenians under the
Ottoman Empire will go ahead, despite a delay following a court
ruling that drew criticism from the Turkish government and the
European Union as Ankara seeks to join the bloc.
The controversy came just days before Turkey is to start accession
talks with the EU on October 3, keen to avoid any move that might
cast a pall on its commitment to democracy and human rights.
The conference, already postponed once in May, was to have opened
Friday to question Ankara’s official version of the 1915-1917
massacres, but a court suspended the event late on Thursday following
a complaint by a group of nationalist lawyers who called the
organisers `traitors’.
But the two universities organising the conference, Bogazici and
Sabanci, refused to back down, rescheduling the event for today and
tomorrow.
The conference is to be held at another 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.
`Our university decided to offer its halls for the conference in the
name of freedom of expression and thought,’ Bilgi University
president Aydin Ugur said.
The academics and intellectuals who would attend the conference
dispute the official version of the killings whose discussion in
Turkey remains largely taboo and which several countries, to Ankara’s
ire, have recognised as genocide.
`The court has cast a shadow on the process of democratisation and
freedoms in my country,’ Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
late on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul put the blame on opponents of Turkey’s
EU bid.
`As October 3 approaches, those at home and abroad who want to
obstruct us are making their last efforts … there are few nations
that can inflict such damage upon themselves,’ Gul said in New York,
Anatolia news agency reported.
The EU also condemned the court decision as a `provocation’.
`We strongly deplore this new attempt to prevent the Turkish society
from discussing its history,’ said the European Commission’s
spokesman on enlargement, Krisztina Nagy.
She warned that if the conference does not go ahead, the situation
would figure in the commission’s annual report on Turkey’s EU
membership aspirations.
Turkey categorically denies that the Ottomans committed genocide
against the Armenians and has reacted angrily against countries which
recognised the killings as such.
The government, however, has encouraged researchers to discuss the
issue, arguing that it is a matter for historians and not
politicians.
Armenians claim up to 1.5mn of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings.
Turkey 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 predecessor of modern
Turkey.
Organisers first postponed the conference in May after Justice
Minister Cemil Cicek branded the initiative `treason’ and a `stab in
the back of the Turkish nation’.
Erdogan, however, called Cicek’s outburst `a personal statement’ and
encouraged researchers to carry out their work.
The ruling against the conference came under fire from the media and
non-governmental organisations.
`Court blow against freedom of expression,’ trumpeted the liberal
daily Milliyet, while the left-leaning Radikal said: `Justice
padlocks science.’
The History Foundation said the significance of the event had now
exceeded its original objective.
`What is being debated is in fact whether Turkey will be governed by
taboos or democracy … whether we will turn to history for peace and
understanding or for rejection and hostility,’ the statement said.
Several nationalist groups backed the court ruling and activists
pasted pictures of Turks killed by Armenians outside the Bogazici
University, Anatolia reported.