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AKCAM: OBAMA'S SPEECH TO TURKISH PARLIAMENT POSITIVE AND SMART
PanARMENIAN.Net
07.04.2009 13:59 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A prominent Turkish scholar says President Obama
gave a tactful but powerful push to the Turkish government to confront
the question of whether the killings of Armenians in 1915 were the
first genocide of the 20th century, Boston Globe reports.
Taner Akcam is a longtime advocate for human rights for minorities
in his native Turkey, as well as an academic authority on Turkey's
handling of the genocide issue. He is a professor in genocide studies
at Clark University in Worcester, and author of the 2006 book,
"Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and The Question of Turkish
Responsibility."
Akcam said of Obama's speech to the Turkish Parliament in Ankara:
"I think he really pushed the borders, in a very positive and very
smart way."
Obama stopped short of using the word genocide, but applauded the
Turkish government for its willingness to improve relations with
neighboring Armenia, which necessarily requires dealing with the
sensitive genocide issue.
Akcam said Obama went as far as any president could go in addressing
a foreign country's legislature. During the presidential campaign
in 2008, Obama said that the killings of the Armenians amounted to
genocide. Before addressing the Turkish Parliament, Obama said that
he had not changed his views, which were "on the record."
But Akcam had been jailed in several times in the 1970s. He escaped
from prison in 1977 after serving one year of a nine-year sentence,
and received asylum in Germany. He taught in Minnesota before moving
to Clark.
PanARMENIAN.Net
07.04.2009 13:59 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A prominent Turkish scholar says President Obama
gave a tactful but powerful push to the Turkish government to confront
the question of whether the killings of Armenians in 1915 were the
first genocide of the 20th century, Boston Globe reports.
Taner Akcam is a longtime advocate for human rights for minorities
in his native Turkey, as well as an academic authority on Turkey's
handling of the genocide issue. He is a professor in genocide studies
at Clark University in Worcester, and author of the 2006 book,
"Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and The Question of Turkish
Responsibility."
Akcam said of Obama's speech to the Turkish Parliament in Ankara:
"I think he really pushed the borders, in a very positive and very
smart way."
Obama stopped short of using the word genocide, but applauded the
Turkish government for its willingness to improve relations with
neighboring Armenia, which necessarily requires dealing with the
sensitive genocide issue.
Akcam said Obama went as far as any president could go in addressing
a foreign country's legislature. During the presidential campaign
in 2008, Obama said that the killings of the Armenians amounted to
genocide. Before addressing the Turkish Parliament, Obama said that
he had not changed his views, which were "on the record."
But Akcam had been jailed in several times in the 1970s. He escaped
from prison in 1977 after serving one year of a nine-year sentence,
and received asylum in Germany. He taught in Minnesota before moving
to Clark.