EXPERT FLIES INTO A ROW OVER DEATHS
Michael Blackley

Scotsman, United Kingdom
Nov 23 2006

A TURKISH professor has made a 3500-mile round-trip to Edinburgh
to criticise the city council for getting involved in a historical
argument concerning his home country.

Last year, the city council passed a motion regarding the deaths
of up to 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War that said
"it was indeed genocide".

But the topic has been the subject of international debate and the
Turkish prime minister recently called for an impartial inquiry into
the deaths.

Now Turkkaya Ataov, a professor of international relations at the
University of Ankara in Turkey, has travelled to Edinburgh for a
10-minute appearance at the City Chambers to tell councillors they
were wrong to pass the motion.

If you have a view on this or any other subject, let us know. Tel:
0131 620 8747 Email: news_en@edinburghnews.com Professor Ataov,
a recipient of the golden honorary medal from Austria-based peace
group the International Progress Organization last year, said:
"If a representative political body passes judgements on the basis
of one-sided and perpetrated Armenian arguments, not only is such a
pursuit beyond its expertise, but also such prejudiced arguments may
well be unsustainable in the light of objective scholarship.

"The only appropriate alternative is to leave the matter to the free
discussion of academics, who possess adequate expertise in related
disciplines."

Around 25 people connected to the British Citizens Proclamation of
Turkish Rights (CPTR) group were expected to pack the City Chambers
public gallery this morning to hear Prof Ataov’s speech.

Last August, the council passed a motion put forward by then city
leader Donald Anderson recognising that the Turkish campaign against
the Armenians in 1915 "was indeed genocide".

But the decision resulted in more than 1500 protest e-mails from
Turkish people in Edinburgh and all around the world who were angry
at the decision.

A new motion, presented by the city’s licensing leader Councillor Phil
Attridge, says that the council should instead support the views of
the Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who wants an international
commission set up to carry out an independent investigation into the
alleged genocide.

If approved, it would in effect reverse last year’s decision to class
the historical incident as genocide.

Councillor Attridge, a member of the ruling Labour group, said:
"I opposed it at the time because we shouldn’t have anything to do
with something like that. We’re weren’t competent enough on that to
make a decision – we’re only a town council and this was 100 years
ago. It was out of order."

Cemal Ozturk, a member of the CPTR, said: "This issue has got nothing
to do with a city council. Why are they wasting taxpayers money
debating issues that are none of their business?

"It’s like Ankara’s council talking about the McDonalds and Campbells."

~U The Armenian Genocide – also known as the Armenian Holocaust or
the Great Calamity – refers to the forced mass evacuation of Armenians
from the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917.

Between 500,000 and 1.5 million people died during the campaign by
the Young Turks government, although Turkey and many countries –
including the UK – today reject the label genocide.

Turkish historians claim the deaths were a result of inter-ethnic
strife, disease and famine, triggered by the First World War.

However, 21 governments recognise the massacres as the first
state-sponsored.