TURKEY CRITICIZES OBAMA MESSAGE; SAYS REMARKS ON MASSACRE FAILED TO NOTE SLAIN TURKS
By Suzan Fraser, Associated Press
The Boston Globe
April 26, 2009 Sunday
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey’s president said yesterday that President
Obama Enhanced Coverage LinkingPresident Obama -Search using:
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News, Most Recent 60 Days failed to honor Turks slain by Armenians
in a message remembering the dead in massacres nearly a century ago.
Obama
Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama -Search using: Biographies Plus News
News, Most Recent 60 Days on Friday refrained from branding the World
War I-era massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey a
"genocide," and instead referred to the killings that began in 1915 as
"one of the great atrocities of the 20th century."
The phrasing of Obama’s Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama’s -Search using:
Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days statement attracted
heightened scrutiny, as using the "genocide" label could have angered
US ally Turkey and possibly disturbed reconciliation talks between
Turkey and Armenia.
President Abdullah Gul Enhanced Coverage LinkingAbdullah Gul -Search
using: Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days of Turkey said,
however, that Obama Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama -Search using:
Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days should also have
expressed sympathy for the "hundreds of thousands of Turks and Muslims"
killed around the same period, according to comments reported by the
state-run Anatolia news agency.
"Everyone’s pain must be shared," Gul reportedly said outside a
meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria. "It is not possible for politicians,
for statesmen to make decisions on historic events."
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry also contended that certain points in Obama’s
Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama’s -Search using: Biographies Plus News
News, Most Recent 60 Days statement were "unacceptable."
"It should not be forgotten that several hundreds of thousands
of Turks have lost their lives as well," the ministry said in a
statement. "Common history of the Turkish and Armenian nations has
to be assessed solely through impartial and scientific data, and
historians must base their evaluations only on such material."
Many scholars view the events in the final years of the Ottoman Empire
as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, contending that
the toll has been inflated and that the casualties were victims
of civil war. It says Turks also suffered losses, at the hands of
Armenian gangs.
Turkey and Armenia agreed Wednesday on a road map for normalizing
relations, but it was not immediately clear how they would tackle
the bitter dispute over the Ottoman-era killings of ethnic Armenians.
Turkey and Armenia have had no diplomatic ties since closing their
border in 1993 because of a Turkish protest of Armenia’s occupation
of land claimed by Azerbaijan.