TURKEY PROTEST TO UN GENOCIDE EXHIBIT
PRESS TV, Iran
April 10 2007
A UN exhibit on 1990’s genocide in Rwanda was postponed after an
objections was made by Turkey to the mention of Armenian genocide in
World War One.
The exhibit was originally planned to be opened on Monday with the
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon scheduled to give an inauguration
lecture.
Turkey has objected to a sentence in the text which mentions that the
alleged massacre of over one million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire
during the early twentieth century acted as an instigation to form
an international alliance against genocide, Reuters reported.
A UN staff member told reporters that the event organizers were
informed of the delay through international body’s Department of Public
Information, adding that other UN divisions were not consulted with
for writing of the text which needed some more fact-checking.
Armenians insist that during the First World War over one million
Armenians died in Turkey after the Turkish Ottoman Empire launched
a massive crackdown on them which also forced many of the Armenian
population to leave their home.
Turkey denies any systematic massacre of Armenians but says large
numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died during a
raging partisan conflict at that time.