ARMENIANS PROTEST TURKISH PARTICIPATION IN UN PEACEKEEPER FORCE
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
August 31, 2006 Thursday 4:50 PM EST
DPA POLITICS Mideast Conflicts Lebanon Armenians Turkey Armenians
protest Turkish participation in UN peacekeeper force Beirut Some 100
Lebanese-Armenians took part in a demonstration Thursday to protest
Turkish participation in the United Nations peacekeeping force due
to to deploy alongside the Lebanese Army in southern Lebanon.
Media reports have said Ankara could send between 600 and 1,200 men
to join a bolstered UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
UNIFIL plans to patrol southern Lebanon, enforcing a fragile ceasefire
that ended a month of deadly Israeli strikes on the country
and rocket attacks by Hezbollah militants against Israel.
The protest took place near UN headquarters in downtown Beirut.
The demonstrators handed a UN official an open letter addressed to
UN chief Kofi Annan.
Lebanon is home to the largest Armenian community in the Arab world,
made up of descendants of survivors of the 1915-1917 massacres
in Turkey.
The Lebanese-Armenian community is estimated to number 120,000,
half of what it was before the 1975-1990 civil war.
Several countries have recognized the massacres as genocide – a term
Turkey fiercely rejects – and Brussels has urged Ankara to face its
past and expand freedom of speech.
Reports say an announcement on the details of the Turkish deployment
could be made when Annan visits Turkey on September 6.
Turkey occupies a unique role in the area, as an overwhelmingly
Muslim nation that nevertheless enjoys the confidence of Israel –
with which it signed a military cooperation agreement in 1996 –
while retaining close ties to nearby Arab states.