CANADIAN LAWMAKERS REMEMBER ‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’

Agence France Presse — English
April 24, 2007 Tuesday 8:20 PM GMT

Canadian parliamentarians stood in silence for one minute Tuesday
to recognize the "Armenian genocide" during World War I, a sensitive
issue that hurt Canadian relations with Turkey last year.

A spokeswoman for Speaker of the House Peter Milliken told AFP the
Conservative government’s House leader and his counterparts from all
three opposition parties agreed to the official commemoration.

Turkey said in April 2006 it was "appalled" by Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper’s reference to the bloodbath as the first genocide of
the 20th century, and temporarily recalled its ambassador to Ottawa
in protest.

Ankara said then Harper’s comments gave support to Armenia’s "unfounded
allegations of genocide" and that his position on the issue would
"negatively affect ties between Turkey and Canada."

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen were slaughtered in
an orchestrated genocide in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey categorically rejects claims of genocide, arguing that
300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife
when Armenians began fighting for independence in eastern Anatolia
and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling Ottoman Empire.