CANADA FACES TURKISH IRE
Daniel Proussalidis

580 CFRA Radio
;nid=64659
April 22 2009

Foreign Affairs is out with the statement that Canada’s position
calling the mass deaths of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 a genocide is
"not an indictment of modern Turkey."

But that’s doing little to cool tempers in Turkey’s capital.

Ankara’s ambassador to Canada has gone back to Turkey for
"consultations" to protest Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s
attendance at a genocide memorial in Ottawa Tuesday.

Kenney is standing firm, despite the criticism.

"The government’s position remains unchanged since the prime minister’s
statement of April, 2006 which is consistent with the motions that
passed through both the Senate and the House of Commons," says Kenney.

In 2006, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognized the mass
killings of Armenians as genocide, Turkey briefly withdrew its
ambassador and pulled out of a military exercise in Canada in protest.

Twenty other countries, including France, Italy, and Russia recognize
the deaths of 1.5-million Armenians in Turkey more than 90 years ago
as a genocide organized by the government of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey officially denies genocide, saying the Armenian death toll is
inflated and was the result of civil war.

Accusing the Ottoman Empire of the Armenian genocide in Turkey is
punishable as "disparaging the nation."