TURKEY CONTACTS US AMBASSADOR OVER OBAMA’S APRIL 24 STATEMENT
Hurriyet
April 27 2009
Turkey
ISTANBUL – The undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned
U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey on Monday to express Ankara’s uneasiness
regarding the President Barack Obama’s statement on April 24.
Obama, who pledged to recognize the Armenian claims regarding the
1915 incident during his presidential campaign, did not use the word
"genocide" while describing the events in his annual April 24 statement
to mark the "day of remembrance of the Armenian deaths."
Instead, he used the Armenian term for the killings, "Meds Yeghern,"
which has been variously translated into English as the "Great
Calamity" or "Great Disaster." He also branded the events as "one of
the great atrocities of the 20th century."
Diplomatic sources said Ertugrul Apakan, undersecretary of the Foreign
Ministry, expressed Ankara’s uneasiness regarding the statement,
which ignored the deaths of thousands of Turks during the incidents,
according to private ANKA news agency.
Apakan also said some of the expressions Obama used were "unacceptable"
and reiterated Turkey’s stance that the issue should be resolved by
historians, not politicians, Hurriyet daily reported on its Web site.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry, however, did not deliver an official
protest to Jeffrey, the reports added.
The issue of the 1915 incidents is a highly sensitive one in both
Armenia and Turkey. Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims
up to 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered in orchestrated killings
in 1915.
Turkey 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, backed by Russia, for independence in eastern Anatolia.
Turkey has offered to form a joint commission to investigate what
happened in 1915 and has opened all official archives.