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Oman Daily Observer
Dec 23 2011
Turkey to launch offensive after row with France
Sun, 25 December 2011
ANKARA - A French bill criminalising the denial of the disputed
Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 has galvinised Turkey
to try to head off similar initiatives in future. Turkey's ambassadors
from all over the world, gathering in the Turkish capital at an annual
event, was holding a closed-door session on the subject.
`We should all be prepared also because we will face an intensive
campaign from the Armenian diaspora in 2015,' a senior Turkish
diplomat said, referring to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
genocide. `And we should take history not from 1915 but from 1914 and
explain what happened in the Balkans during that period,' said the
diplomat.
The French bill drew fury from the Turkish government which
immediately recalled its ambassador from Paris and froze military and
diplomatic ties with this country. Analysts here criticised the French
legislation for undermining freedom of thought, but they also called
on Ankara to adopt a proactive rather than reactive policy on the
issue.
`Unfortunately, we are constantly expecting people to bring the
subject up,' Burcu Gultekin Punsmann, an analyst at Ankara-based
think-tank TEPAV, said. `Now 2015 (the 100th anniversary) is the
biggest deadline in front of us when the campaign will grow like a
snowball rolling down hill,' she said.
In 1915 and 1916, during World War I many Armenians died in Ottoman
Turkey. Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in a genocide. Turkey
says around 500,000 died in fighting after Armenians sided with
Russian invaders.
`Isn't it the time to confront with what happened in 1915,' Mehmet
Tezkan wrote in Milliyet daily.
`We have avoided any talk on 1915 for decades... One must be blind not
to see what will happen four years later. Genocide will be recognised
by the entire world in 2015 on its 100th anniversary.'
Punsmann said Ankara could take a symbolic step and apologise for the
1915 killings, like it did recently regarding the killings of Kurds in
the 1930s.
In November, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the
first Turkish premier to apologise for a bloody military campaign that
killed more than 13,000 Kurds in the 1930s. - AFP
http://main.omanobserver.om/node/76783
Dec 23 2011
Turkey to launch offensive after row with France
Sun, 25 December 2011
ANKARA - A French bill criminalising the denial of the disputed
Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 has galvinised Turkey
to try to head off similar initiatives in future. Turkey's ambassadors
from all over the world, gathering in the Turkish capital at an annual
event, was holding a closed-door session on the subject.
`We should all be prepared also because we will face an intensive
campaign from the Armenian diaspora in 2015,' a senior Turkish
diplomat said, referring to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian
genocide. `And we should take history not from 1915 but from 1914 and
explain what happened in the Balkans during that period,' said the
diplomat.
The French bill drew fury from the Turkish government which
immediately recalled its ambassador from Paris and froze military and
diplomatic ties with this country. Analysts here criticised the French
legislation for undermining freedom of thought, but they also called
on Ankara to adopt a proactive rather than reactive policy on the
issue.
`Unfortunately, we are constantly expecting people to bring the
subject up,' Burcu Gultekin Punsmann, an analyst at Ankara-based
think-tank TEPAV, said. `Now 2015 (the 100th anniversary) is the
biggest deadline in front of us when the campaign will grow like a
snowball rolling down hill,' she said.
In 1915 and 1916, during World War I many Armenians died in Ottoman
Turkey. Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in a genocide. Turkey
says around 500,000 died in fighting after Armenians sided with
Russian invaders.
`Isn't it the time to confront with what happened in 1915,' Mehmet
Tezkan wrote in Milliyet daily.
`We have avoided any talk on 1915 for decades... One must be blind not
to see what will happen four years later. Genocide will be recognised
by the entire world in 2015 on its 100th anniversary.'
Punsmann said Ankara could take a symbolic step and apologise for the
1915 killings, like it did recently regarding the killings of Kurds in
the 1930s.
In November, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the
first Turkish premier to apologise for a bloody military campaign that
killed more than 13,000 Kurds in the 1930s. - AFP
http://main.omanobserver.om/node/76783