Hürriyet, Turkey
Dec 30 2008
Pro-Kurdish party leader apologizes to Armenians for 1915 incidents
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party leader apologized on Tuesday to Assyrian as
well Armenians for the 1915 incidents.
"Maybe Kurds have contributed to the loss of this (cultural)
richness. We are ashamed when we look at our Armenian or Assyrian
brothers," said Ahmet Turk, the leader of pro-Kurdish DTP.
They are always ready to apologize for their mistakes and they
struggle to allow people to live in peace, he was quoted as saying by
the Dogan News Agency.
A group of Turkish academics, journalists and artists recently
launched an Internet campaign to apologize on behalf of all Turks for
ignoring what happened in 1915 at the time of the Ottoman Empire.
Armenians claim the Ottomans conducted "genocide" against
them. However there are many historical documents showing that 300,000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.