INSURANCE FIRM TO PAY OUT ON OTTOMAN ARMENIAN POLICIES

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Oct 13 2005

The French insurance company Axa on Thursday agreed to pay $17
million to settle a case brought by the descendants of Armenian policy
holders the claimants say were killed during the First World War by
the Ottoman Empire.

Guncelleme: 10:31 ET 13 Ekim 2005 PerºembeLOS ANGELES – Turkey has
strenuously rejected suggestions that the Ottoman Empire carried out
a policy of genocide against its Armenian citizens.

Under the settlement, Axa is to pay at least $3.0 million to a
number of Armenian charitable groups based in France, with another
$11 million set aside for the descendants of the original policy
holders of insurance policies with companies that were subsidiaries
of Axa operating in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Many of the claims
were never met.

Some Armenians claim that up to 1.5 Armenian Ottoman citizens were
killed in 1915 and in the years following in what they describe as
a deliberate act of genocide.

Turkey denies that there was any policy of mass killings, though
does acknowledge that some 300,000 Armenians and many Ottoman Turkish
citizens died during the conflict of the First World War.

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