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Turkish prime minister criticizes German chancellor for Armeniaresol

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  • Turkish prime minister criticizes German chancellor for Armeniaresol

    Turkish prime minister criticizes German chancellor for Armenia resolution

    AP Worldstream; Jun 17, 2005

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized German Chancellor
    Gerhard Schroeder for failing to curb a parliament resolution calling
    on Turkey to re-examine its role in the deaths of 1 million Armenians.

    "He should have made his position clear, he should have been able
    to influence lawmakers, and parliamentarians should have made their
    reservations clear," Erdogan said late Thursday. "I wonder if he
    tried and was not successful."

    Erdogan said he found the decision, "without discussing the issue
    and without negotiations, very wrong. More than wrong, I also find
    it ugly."

    "I like politics that has a backbone," he added.

    Erdogan spoke at Istanbul's airport upon returning from a summit
    in Lebanon, where the accusations of genocide against Armenians
    also played heavily. Lebanese Armenians protested the Turkish prime
    minister's visit, burning Turkish flags in Beirut.

    Erdogan suggested that Schroeder had in the past supported Turkey's
    position.

    "His position was directly opposite" to the parliament's decision,
    Erdogan said, adding that the decision was "wrong from the point of
    view of political ethics."

    Erdogan also said Turkey had opened up its archives for researchers
    to study the Ottoman-era killings, but said no one had taken up the
    offer to examine them.

    "History will put them to shame, the future will put them to shame,"
    he said.

    Many Armenians have said that the Ottoman archives have been purged
    of necessary documents and have rejected Erdogan's offer.

    German lawmakers on Thursday adopted a resolution asking the government
    to press Turkey to investigate the "organized expulsion and destruction
    of the Armenians" and foster reconciliation.

    Armenia accuses Turkey of genocide in the killings as part of a
    1915-23 campaign to force Armenians out of eastern Anatolia.

    Turkey denies that the killings were genocide, and says the death
    count is inflated and that Armenians were killed or displaced along
    with others as the Ottoman Empire tried to quell civil unrest.

    The speaker of the Turkish parliament, Bulent Arinc, said Friday he was
    composing a letter to his German counterpart to condemn the decision,
    the Anatolia news agency reported.

    In the Turkish capital, Ankara, about 150 members of a Turkish trade
    union on Friday protested the German parliament's decision, shouting:
    "Fascist Germany," "Racist Germany" and "Germany, don't test our
    patience."

    The protesters, members of a civil servants union, scuffled with police
    for about 10 minutes outside the German Embassy after a plainclothes
    policeman removed and broke a black wreath the protesters had left
    at the embassy gate.

    They dispersed peacefully after the wreath was returned to the gate.
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