EP wants Turkey to "face its past"

armradio.am
15.12.2007 11:57

The European Parliament wants Turkey to "face its past" but the
Parliament’s German President Hans-Gert Pöttering reiterated yesterday.

"We have told Turkey that it should recognize its historical
responsibilities. We cannot go beyond that," he told reporters at a
press conference in Brussels, on the sidelines of an EU summit. He said
history could teach people lessons to prevent the repetition of tragic
past events, adding that a process of moral and mental digestion should
be completed for this first.

When EU leaders were holding their one-day summit in Brussels, a group
of Armenians gathered for a protest near the summit hall against
Turkey’s accession to the EU. They held banners reading "Stop!" as they
demanded the EU halt accession talks with Ankara and criticized the
27-nation bloc for being too soft on Turkey.

Pöttering openly criticized Ankara for its lack of progress in
religious freedoms, citing Turkey’s refusal to recognize the
"ecumenical" status of the Greek Orthodox patriarch based in Istanbul
and to reopen a Greek Orthodox seminary on an island off Istanbul,
closed since 1971