PRIMATE OF U.S. EASTERN DIOCESE STRUGGLES AGAINST HOLDING ONE-SIDED CONFERENCE UNDER MASK OF TURKISH-ARMENIAN DIALOGUE
Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Apr 18 2007
NEW YORK, APRIL 18, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Archbishop Khazhak
Parsamian, the primate of the U.S. Eastern Diocese addressed to
the administration of the Southern Methodist University of Dallas,
co-sponsor of the hastily organized international conference entitled
"Relating to Turkish-Armenian Dialogue." According to the information
submitted to Noyan Tapan by the U.S. Eastern Armenian Diocese,
worried with the circumstance that among the 12 speakers invited to
the conference there is no Armenian scientist or American Armenian
figure, exlucing the Armenian Patriarch of Turkey, Archbishop Parsamian
persuaded University President Doctor R. Gerald Turner to stop the
university sponsorship and assistance to the conference.
Besides, ecumenic colleagues, like, for example, Doctor Bob Edgar
from the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA,
joined Archbishop Parsamian calling on the university to stop its
sponsoring a conference which will be a monologue, effectively pushing
out Armenians from the supposed dialogue.
In response, University Vice President Jim Caswell informed that the
office of the University spiritual pastor stopped its assistance
to that event and demanded from the University "Turkish Student"
group sponsoring the conference and from other Turkish interested
groups and funds to remove the University name and symbol from their
advertisement materials and web sites.
Later the American scientists, learning about one-sided discussions,
refused to participate in that conference.
But the "Turkish Student" group of the University, the pro-Turkish
fund and the "interreligious" group having a Turk head still plan to
carry out the conference, in spite of the scientific world’s universal
condemnation relating to the framework and organization of the event.