Noyan Tapan News Agency
Oct 14 2005

VICE-SPEAKER OF TURKISH PARLIAMENT INTENDS TO REFUTE STATEMENTS MADE
BY HALIL BERKTAY IN YEREVAN IN HIS LETTER TO NATO PA

ISTANBUL, OCTOBER 14, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Turkish
press widely touched upon the participation of historian Halil
Berktay, Sabanc University lecturer, in the Rose Roth Yerevan seminar
of NATO Parliamentary Assembly (PA). According to the “Marmara” daily
of Istanbul, the publications in Turkish press make known that the
Turkish parliament refused to send a Turkish delegation to the
seminar in order that Halil Berktay should become the only Turkish
participant of the seminar. Berktay left for Yerevan and speaking at
the seminar, supported the point of view that the leadership of the
Ottoman period pursued the goal of annihilating the Armenian people
by means of displacement and slaughter and the events of 1915 must be
qualified a genocide.

Simon Lu, NATO PA Secretary General, sent the text of Halil Berktay’s
Yerevan speech to Vahid Erdem, Vice-Speaker of Turkish Parliament,
after which Vahid Erdem gave commentaries at the October 12 press
conference. He reported that NATO PA had applied to the Turkish
parliament with a request of sending a delegation to the seminar, but
the parliament, putting forward reasons about a “long and unsafe
way,” decided that the Turkish delegation won’t participate in the
seminar. Erdem mentioned that indeed the delegation was able to come
to Yerevan but the parliament made the opposite decision motivating
it by the fact that Turkey has no diplomatic relations with Armenia.

After these explanations Erdem regretted to say that the organizers
gave the floor to “such a historian as Halil Berktay” whose speech
was “one-sided.” Objecting to Berktay’s viewpoints, Erdem declared at
the press conference that there is no study proving that Armenians
became victims of a genocide.

Vahid Erdem noted that the NATO organizers didn’t have a secret
purpose but they had better send someone who were “unbiassed” and in
this case there would be a more “sound” debate on the issue.

Vahid Erdem added that he is going to send a letter consisting of 3
pages to NATO PA Secretariate General, in which he will respond to
Berktay’s points of view.