TURKS, ARMENIANS AT ODDS OVER GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

Washington Times, DC
Oct 10 2007

The line to get into this afternoon’s House committee hearing on
whether to say Turkey committed genocide during World War I was down
the hall and around the corner.

When staffers opened the door, the room filled with Turks wearing
white stickers saying, "NO to H.R. 106," and Armenians wearing green
stickers that said, "Yes to H.R. 106."

A staffer had to start kicking people out, sending them to an overflow
room, and another staffer fought with a Turkish man over seats.

Four older women in wheelchairs sat at the front of the room, wearing
stickers that said, "I am a survivor of the Armenian genocide."

Sirarpi Khoyan, wearing a green jacket and skirt, was 102 years old
and sat in her wheelchair eating yogurt.

"Mine is a very important story," she said.

Mrs. Khoyan was born in Istanbul, and told the story of helping to
pick lice out of a boy’s head whose village had been massacred.

In 1918, when she was 13, her father brought her and her siblings to
America for a vacation. Her brother warned her father not to come back,
and they stayed in America.

Was Turkey’s persecution of the Armenians from 1915 to 1923 genocide?

"Of course it was. There’s no two ways about it," said Mrs. Khoyan.

Abrurrahman Bezirkan, president of the Young Turks Cultural Aid
Society, Inc., felt differently.

"The whole country of Turkey is waiting for this hearing," said Mr.

Bezirkan, who lives in New Jersey.

He said it was important to the country to remain allies with the U.S.,
and said the idea of genocide was "propaganda" and a blackmail scheme
by "the Armenian lobby to get some money."