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NPR Transcript: Turkey's entry into the European Union

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  • NPR Transcript: Turkey's entry into the European Union

    National Public Radio (NPR)
    SHOW: All Things Considered 8:00 AM EST NPR
    April 26, 2005 Tuesday

    Turkey's entry into the European Union could hinge on whether it
    accepts responsibility for Ottoman Empire's treatment of Armenians 90
    years ago

    ANCHORS: ROBERT SIEGEL

    REPORTERS: IVAN WATSON

    ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

    It has been 90 years since the Ottoman Empire's mass deportation and
    massacre of ethnic Armenians during World War I. Armenians marked the
    anniversary over the weekend of what they call a genocide. They say
    one and a half million of their people were killed. That's a charge
    that modern-day Turkey has long denied. And now that it is on the
    verge of beginning negotiations to join the European Union, Turkey
    once again finds itself on the defensive in this historical
    controversy. NPR's Ivan Watson reports from Istanbul.

    IVAN WATSON reporting:

    On a day when Armenians held solemn ceremonies of remembrance in
    Yerevan, Paris and New York, in Turkey, the day honoring Armenian
    victims was virtually ignored. Nearly a century after the fact, the
    official Armenian and Turkish versions of what took place in the
    final years of the Ottoman Empire are still miles apart. Ilter Turan
    is a professor at Istanbul's Yildiz University.

    Professor ILTER TURAN (Yildiz University): What happened in 1915 and
    during that period was a mutual battle between poorly organized
    people trying to retain territory as a multinational empire was
    crumbling.

    WATSON: The Turkish government contends that a half-million Turkish
    Muslims were killed after Armenians revolted against the Ottoman
    Empire during World War I. Armenians reject this claim. Karan
    Karakoshlai(ph) is a founder of the Augos Armenian newspaper in
    Istanbul.

    Ms. KARAN KARAKOSHLAI (Founder, Augos): In summary, what happened was
    that a great nation of 4,000 years was exterminated, was cut off the
    roots.

    WATSON: Both sides agree that the Ottomans forcibly deported huge
    numbers of Armenians from what is now eastern Turkey. And today
    Turkey's Armenian Christian community has dwindled to just 60,000
    people. Though Turkey has offered to conduct a joint historical probe
    with neighboring Armenia, many Turks continue to be defensive about
    what they call `the Armenian issue.' This year nationalists filed
    lawsuits against Turkey's most famous author when he told a Swiss
    newspaper, quote, "One million Armenians were murdered here, and no
    one dares to mention that.' Professor Turan, a former member of a
    Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission, says until recently the
    subject was taboo here.

    Prof. TURAN: The Turkish educational system for a long time
    concentrated on nation-building. And the arguments or ideas that were
    thought to undermine it were not discussed in primary or high school
    curriculums.

    WATSON: But there are signs that the taboo is beginning to break
    down. Only a few Armenians are left in the southeastern Turkish city
    of Diyarbakir, where schoolchildren play in the ruins of a large
    Armenian cathedral that stands as an unofficial monument to what was
    once a thriving community.

    (Soundbite of banging noises)

    WATSON: Younger generations here, mostly ethnic Kurds, are beginning
    to talk about their great-grandparents' role in the massacres.

    Unidentified Man: They were Muslim Kurdish people, Muslim. And they
    killed Armenian people.

    WATSON: At a university, a Kurdish student named Zoloh(ph) and
    several classmates recounted stories passed down by long-dead
    relatives of atrocities against their Armenian neighbors. This
    Kurdish woman, who preferred not to give her name, said some of her
    ancestors were, in fact, Armenians who had been forced to convert to
    Islam.

    Unidentified Woman: (Through Translator) We couldn't admit to our
    neighbors that my great-grandmother was Armenian and that was she was
    forced to marry my great-grandfather. At school they didn't tell us
    about the genocide, but I heard the stories, some from my relatives
    at home. And I always had one question: Why did they kill the
    Armenians? What did they do?

    WATSON: International pressure is building on Turkey on this issue.
    Over the past year the European Parliament and France have joined
    Armenian diaspora groups demanding that Turkey accept responsibility
    for the genocide before it can become a member of the European Union.
    But Karan Karakoshlai of the Armenian Augos newspaper says blocking
    Turkey's EU bid would be a step backwards for Turkey and the
    Armenians still living here.

    Ms. KARAKOSHLAI: This is a genocide again to the ancestors a second
    time because a tragic historical pain is used as a political
    material.

    WATSON: Ivan Watson, NPR News, Istanbul.
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