Turkish protest over genocide conference
The Guardian, UK
Nicholas Watt, European editor
Monday September 26, 2005
Turkey avoided a damaging row with the EU on free speech at the weekend when
a conference on the Armenian genocide was finally held in Istanbul after the
organisers circumvented a court ban.
With a week to go until Turkey opens formal membership talks with the EU,
academics broke new ground by discussing the extent of the killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turkish troops from 1915-23.
Nationalists threw eggs and tomatoes at participants as they arrived at the
city’s Bilgi University. Waving Turkish flags and chanting slogans, they
accused academics at the conference of betraying the nation by discussing
claims that Ottoman Turkish troops were responsible for the genocide of 1.5
million Armenians.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, agrees with the
nationalists’ claim that Turkish forces were not responsible for genocide in
the dying years of the Ottoman empire. But he was delighted the conference
took place – avoiding a row about free speech with the EU before membership
talks next Monday. The European commission accused the Turkish judiciary of
a “provocation” on Friday after an Istanbul court prevented the conference
from opening. Ankara’s opponents in the EU, who are this week likely to
offer reluctant support for a framework for the membership talks, would have
been strengthened if the ban had succeeded.
But the conference organisers, who postponed the event in May after a
government minister declared that claims of genocide amounted to treason,
circumvented the ban by moving to a new venue.
The Turkish media welcomed the successful staging of the conference.
“Another taboo is destroyed. The conference began but the day of judgment
did not come,” said the Milliyet daily.
Turkey’s supporters in the EU will be relieved that the Turkish government
opposed the court order and was prepared to defend free speech. But Abdullah
Gul, the foreign minister, stood by the the official explanation that many
citizens of the Ottoman empire suffered terribly during the war. Claims of
an Armenian genocide were false, he insisted. “The Turkish people are at
peace with themselves and with their history,” Mr Gul was quoted by Reuters
as saying.
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