PARLIAMENTS CAN’T JUDGE HISTORY, SAYS ANKARA

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 29 2007

Ankara reiterated yesterday that parliaments are not appropriate places
for making assertions regarding historical facts, such as whether the
killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I was genocide or not.

While in Washington the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
was preparing to vote on a resolution condemning the murder of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink — calling on Turkey to abolish
a penal code article widely considered to be a barrier standing in
the way of freedom of expression, and asking Turkey to establish
diplomatic, political and economic relations with neighboring Armenia
— Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Bilman yesterday responded to
questions on the same issue at a weekly press conference.

The committee had delayed a planned vote on the non-binding resolution
three weeks ago, when the ranking member of the committee Richard
Lugar objected to it and wanted the "Armenian genocide" expression to
be taken out of the resolution. The delay had led to disappointment
in the Armenian diaspora while pleasing Ankara.

It is not clear yet whether or not the "Armenian genocide" expression
has been taken out, Bilman said, adding: "We don’t wish for parliaments
to make such decisions. We believe that if there is an issue related
to history, this should be directly researched by historians and a
judgment should be made by historians, not by parliamentarians."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress