53 NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS CALL ON ARMENIA AND TURKEY FOR RECONCILIATION

PanARMENIAN.Net
09.04.2007 15:46 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity has published
a call that urges Armenia and Turkey for reconciliation, undersigned
by 53 Nobel Prize winners. Executive Director of the Foundation David
Phillips was the initiator of this action, who earlier coordinated
works of Armenia-Turkey Reconciliation Committee. David Phillips told
RFE/RL that the Nobel Prize winners call on the Turkish government to
end up with discrimination towards national and religious minorities
and cancel Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which supposes
criminal punishment for "insulting Turkishness". Nobel Prize winners
call on Armenia to "give opportunity for holding free and fair
elections, as well as respect human rights". Alongside they urge
Turkey to open borders with neighboring Armenia, speed up mutual
contacts and establish full diplomatic relations. They offer to use
legal approach for settling the problem of recognizing the Armenian
Genocide, at the same time underlining that the UN Convention on
genocide has never had retroaction, and consequently, cannot "be used
as a base for compensations or territorial claims". "There exists
a huge gap among Turks and Armenians in the issue of realizing the
Armenian Genocide. In order to settle the problem we turn to legal
examination of UN Convention on preventing and punishing genocide
crimes, which contains conclusions of scientists who have studied
fact of genocide. In particular, the Convention says, "events at
the beginning of the 20th century contain all elements of Genocide,
approved by the convention," the document underscores.