SOME BRAVE TURKS UNDERSTAND THE NEED TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

The Fresno Bee
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Dec 17 2008
CA

An encouraging small sign emerged this week in the decades-long Turkish
denial of the Armenian genocide: A group of Turkish intellectuals
published a letter of apology for the World War I-era massacres of
Armenians in Turkey.

The apology, posted on the Internet, reads in part: "My conscience
does not accept that [Turkey] remain[s] insensitive toward and deny
the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected in
1915. I reject this injustice, share in the feelings and pain of my
Armenian brothers, and apologize to them."

It isn’t the official recognition of the genocide that Armenians
have long sought — in fact, the apology doesn’t use the word
"genocide." But making the gesture comes at some risk to the signers —
others have been prosecuted for similar statements, and Hrant Dink,
an ethnic Armenian journalist, was killed in 2007 for expressing
the truth.

And truth it is: Some 1.5 million Armenians were murdered in the
waning years of World War I and thereafter, as the Ottoman Empire
collapsed. The killings were planned and orchestrated, the 20th
century’s first genocide. Armenians and others who value truth and
justice have sought recognition of those crimes for years.

Turkey has resisted, even though the blame for the genocide doesn’t lie
with today’s Turkish government or its people. That denial has come
with a price; Turkey is still struggling to join the European Union,
and its intransigence on the genocide question is a major obstacle
to that effort.

Some small thaws have recently been seen in relations Turkey’s
relations with neighboring Armenia. The Turkish president joined his
Armenian counterpart in Armenia’s capital in September to watch the
two nations’ soccer teams play for a spot in the World Cup.

There is still a strong nationalist sentiment in Turkey to deny the
genocide, and that won’t be overcome easily. But the courageous step
of these Turkish intellectuals — and some 2,500 other Turkish citizens
who signed the apology — is welcome.

Out of such small steps great strides are sometimes fashioned. In
time, we hope, a full reconciliation will be possible based on an
honest acknowledgment of historical facts and a determination to work
together for a peaceful future.