PATRIARCH RECOGNISES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, TURKISH PRESIDENT THREATENS EXPULSIONS
Ekklesia
e/11550
March 18 2010
UK
Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill has honoured the victims
of the Armenian genocide, the first of its kind among the terrors of
the the 20th century.
As part of a visit to Yerevan, Kirill laid wreaths at Yerevan’s
Armenian Genocide Monument, dedicated to the many hundreds of thousands
of Armenians who died in World War One-era mass killings by Turkish
forces.
Kirill and Catholicos Garegin II, the supreme leader of the Armenian
Apostolic Church, were greeted by hundreds of believers and led a joint
prayer service at the Armenian church’s main cathedral in Echmiadzin,
near Yerevan, on 16 March 2010.
However, after politicians in the US and Sweden recently recognised
the deaths of up to 1.5 million in 1915 as an Armenian genocide,
Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan responded by threatening to expel
about 100,000 unregistered Armenians living in Turkey.
The move is being seen as an attempt to stem further recognition of
the genocide. Cengiz Candar, a columnist for Radikal newspaper and
Hurriyet Online in Istanbul, describes the statement as "careless"
and aimed at placating hard-line nationalists.
Critics add that if Turkey were to start to carry out this threat
it would become an international incident and would threaten the
political ground the country has made in terms of EU accession and
beneficial relations with the international community.
President Erdogan’s statement has also gone down badly with many
moderate supporters of the policies of the current Turkish government.
Turkey officially denies that the deaths during the expulsion of
Christian Armenians by the forces of the collapsing Ottoman Empire
at the end of World War I were genocidal. Most historians disagree,
and those seeking to acknowledge the crime say that truthfulness
about history is key to securing just-peace in the future and an end
to the culture of immunity around those who engage in mass systematic
slaughter.
President Erdogan is now unlikely to attend an energy summit hosted
by Barack Obama in April 2010, according to Hurriyet newspaper.
He has already pulled out of a top-level meeting in Sweden, and Turkey
has withdrawn ambassadors from both Washington DC and Stockholm after
two recent votes earlier this month on recognising the genocide,
taken by a US congressional committee and by the Swedish parliament.
Turkey is angry about the diplomatic successes of the Armenian
diaspora in seeking to secure recognition of the historical truth of
the genocide.
In a recent interview statement, Prime Minister Erdogan declared: "Any
country which cares for Armenia, namely the US, France and Russia,
should primarily help Armenia to free itself from the influence of
the diaspora."
The official annual anniversary of the Armenian genocide is 24 April.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
