A FRIEND’S BLOW TO ORHAN PAMUK
Turkish Daily News
Turkish Press Yesterday
Oct 30 2006
Major headlines from Turkish newspapers and their summaries on
Oct. 29, 2006
Sabah yesterday reported that Taner Akcam, a Turkish academic who
maintains that mass killings of Armenians in 1915 were part of an
organized campaign tantamount to genocide, is set to publish a book
on the alleged genocide in the United States. The report referred
to academic Taner Akcam as a "writer of the books accusing Turkey of
genocide of Armenians."The book, titled "A Shameful Act," includes a
letter from Orhan Pamuk, controversial Turkish winner of the Nobel
Prize in Literature this year. After Pamuk’s award was announced,
he was criticized at home for having "sold out" his country to clinch
the Nobel. Pamuk had previously said that Turks killed 30,000 Kurds
and 1,000,000 Armenians, subjects about which the Turkish people are
very sensitive. Some Turks felt that his political statements were the
major reason he was awarded the Nobel. In its report, Sabah recalled
that, following reactions to his words and his Nobel, Pamuk had toned
down his stance on the Armenian genocide allegations.
However, his letter in Akcam’s book says, "This book is a perfect
retrospective on the organized destruction of Ottoman Armenians written
by a daring Turkish academic who has dedicated his life to record
historical realities."Sabah said these expressions would be likely
to give Pamuk a difficult time when he was in the midst of making an
effort to deaden the Armenian controversy surrounding his Nobel.