ARMENIAN INTELLECTUALS TO LAUNCH COUNTER-APOLOGY CAMPAIGN

Today’s Zaman
Feb 2 2009
Turkey

Armenian intellectuals are preparing to launch a campaign to apologize
for the killings of Turks by Armenian gangs and the Armenian Secret
Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) during the final years of
the Ottoman Empire.

A similar campaign launched by Turkish intellectuals in December 2008
for the killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire
triggered a heated debate in Turkey and drew angry criticism from
certain circles which claimed the apology campaign would deal a blow
to Turkey’s efforts to normalize relations with Armenia.

An academic and the co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Dialogue Group,
Armen Gakavian, who talked to the Radikal daily yesterday about the
apology initiative, said the group of Armenian intellectuals was
opposing any kind of violence committed in the past.

"I apologize to the Ottomans and Turks for the murders committed in
the name of the Armenian public and share the feelings of innocent
Ottomans and Turks who feel pain over this," reads the text of the
Armenian intellectuals’ apology campaign.

Gakavian said the reason prompting the Armenian intellectuals to
initiate the apology campaign was the similar campaign launched by
a group of Turkish intellectuals.

"I cannot conscientiously accept the indifference to the Great Disaster
that Ottoman Armenians suffered in 1915, and its denial. I reject
this injustice and, acting of my own will, I share the feelings and
pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters, and I apologize to them,"
read the text of the apology by the Turkish intellectuals.

Ankara, which has no diplomatic relations with Armenia, wants Yerevan
to abandon its campaign for the recognition of the 1915 killings as
genocide and to make progress in its dispute with Azerbaijan before
formal diplomatic relations can be established. Armenians claim that up
to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings
during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically
rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least
as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up
arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with the Russian
troops that were invading Ottoman territory. A visit by President
Abdullah Gul to Yerevan in early September to watch a World Cup
qualifying match between Turkey and Armenia’s national soccer teams,
upon an invitation by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, broke the
ice between the two countries.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress