WRITERS RISK BACKLASH WITH APOLOGY FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Robert Tait

The Guardian
Monday December 8 2008

Academics and writers in Turkey have risked a fierce official backlash
by issuing a public apology for the alleged genocide suffered by
Armenians at the hands of Ottoman forces during the first world war.

Breaking one of Turkish society’s biggest taboos, the apology comes
in an open letter that invites Turks to sign an online petition
supporting its sentiments.

It reads: "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to
and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians
were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share,
I empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I
apologise to them."

The contents expose its authors – three scholars, Ahmet Insel,
Baskin Oran and Cengiz Aktar, and a journalist, Ali Bayramoglu –
to the wrath of the Turkish state, which has prosecuted writers,
including the Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, for supporting
Armenian genocide claims.

Turkey rejects the assertion of many historians and Armenia’s
government that up to 1.5 million Armenians died in a wave of
expulsions that amounted to state-sanctioned genocide. Officials
claim the death toll was much lower and that most of the victims
died from disease. They also say many Turks were killed by Armenians,
who have long been accused of allying themselves with enemy Russian
forces against the Ottoman empire.

The letter has triggered a furious response from ultranationalists, who
have labelled it a "betrayal" and an "insult to the Turkish nation".

However, Aktar, a professor of EU studies at Istanbul’s University of
Bahcesehir, said Turks needed to apologise for being unable to discuss
the issue because of official policy, which has long repressed open
debate on the Armenians’ fate.

"Today many people in Turkey, with all good intentions, think that
nothing happened to the Armenians," he told the newspaper Vatan. "The
official history says that this incident happened through secondary,
not very important, and even mutual massacres. They push the idea
that it was an ordinary incident explainable by the conditions of
the first world war.

Unfortunately, the facts are very different."

He added: "This is a voice coming from the individual’s
conscience. Those who want to apologise can apologise, and those who
do not should not."

The letter coincides with a tentative rapprochement between Turkey
and Armenia.

In September, the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, attended a football
match between the two countries, at the invitation of his Armenian
counterpart, Serge Sarkisian.

But further talks aimed at restoring ties have become bogged down
partly because of Armenian reluctance to accept a Turkish demand for
a joint commission to investigate the genocide claims.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress