ORHAN PAMUK: I DID NOT USE TERM “GENOCIDE”
Pan Armenian
17.10.2005 23:30 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk abandoned his statements
characterizing the carnages of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in
1915 as Genocide. Pamuk said his words were wrongly interpreted. “I
did not use term “genocide” and I announced the number of victims
spontaneously,” he stated.
To note, the court session on Orhan Pamuk’s case is to be held
late this year. To remind, February 2005 during an interview with
a Swiss newspaper Pamuk stated that “1 million Armenians and 30
thousand Kurds were slaughtered in Turkey.” Then he was threatened
with persecution and even savage punishment. It should be also noted
that the Istanbul court recently sentenced editor-in-Chief of Akos
newspaper Hrant Dink to 6 months of conditional imprisonment for
“outraging national identity of Turks.” Last year Dink called upon
Armenians not to poison their blood with hatred towards Turks. In
Dink’s opinion, the court interpreted his words as “poisonous blood
of Turks”. Dink is going to appeal the verdict and in case of failure
to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, reported IA Regnum.