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Taner Akcam urges Obama to encourage Turkey to acknowledge Armenian Genocide
ARMRADIO.AM
15.06.2012 15:57
Taner Akcam, Professor of History at Clark University, has urged
President Obama and his European allies to encourage "Turkey to
acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, and to follow the post-Holocaust
example of Germany by making appropriate compensation for lives and
property," the Sacramento Bee informs.
Dr. Akcam made this plea last week while contributing to Christian
Solidarity International's (CSI) spring 2012 conference series on The
Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East.
Akcam said Turkey's willingness to recognize the Genocide, in which
approximately 1.5 million Christians - mainly Armenians and Assyrians
- perished, and to provide compensation, is a litmus test of its
fitness to fulfill its aspiration for Great Power status and
leadership in shaping the destiny of the Middle East. Turkey's Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu calls for the "reintegration" of territories
in Syria, Greece, Bulgaria, and Georgia with Turkey - a policy often
referred to by political commentators as New Ottomanism.
Launching his new book, The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The
Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire,
(Princeton, 2012), Akcam noted that "under the Islamic law of the
Ottoman Empire, Christians were not allowed to become fully equal,"
and that "it was, in fact, impossible for equality to be realized
under the Islamic law of the Empire." The Turkish Republic, Akcam
maintains, has to break decisively from the tradition of Turkish and
Islamic supremacism if it is going to gain the confidence of
non-Muslim minorities and non-Turkish communities and become a source
of regional democratic stability, rather than repression.
`Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyib Erdogan, persists in
denying the Genocide process, which has reduced the country's
Christian population from approximately 30% in 1914 to less than 1%
today. He has furthermore sought to use religion as a last line of
defense with the claim that "it is not possible for a Muslim to commit
genocide," Professor Akcam said.
From: Baghdasarian
ARMRADIO.AM
15.06.2012 15:57
Taner Akcam, Professor of History at Clark University, has urged
President Obama and his European allies to encourage "Turkey to
acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, and to follow the post-Holocaust
example of Germany by making appropriate compensation for lives and
property," the Sacramento Bee informs.
Dr. Akcam made this plea last week while contributing to Christian
Solidarity International's (CSI) spring 2012 conference series on The
Future of Religious Minorities in the Middle East.
Akcam said Turkey's willingness to recognize the Genocide, in which
approximately 1.5 million Christians - mainly Armenians and Assyrians
- perished, and to provide compensation, is a litmus test of its
fitness to fulfill its aspiration for Great Power status and
leadership in shaping the destiny of the Middle East. Turkey's Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu calls for the "reintegration" of territories
in Syria, Greece, Bulgaria, and Georgia with Turkey - a policy often
referred to by political commentators as New Ottomanism.
Launching his new book, The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity: The
Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire,
(Princeton, 2012), Akcam noted that "under the Islamic law of the
Ottoman Empire, Christians were not allowed to become fully equal,"
and that "it was, in fact, impossible for equality to be realized
under the Islamic law of the Empire." The Turkish Republic, Akcam
maintains, has to break decisively from the tradition of Turkish and
Islamic supremacism if it is going to gain the confidence of
non-Muslim minorities and non-Turkish communities and become a source
of regional democratic stability, rather than repression.
`Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister, Recep Tayyib Erdogan, persists in
denying the Genocide process, which has reduced the country's
Christian population from approximately 30% in 1914 to less than 1%
today. He has furthermore sought to use religion as a last line of
defense with the claim that "it is not possible for a Muslim to commit
genocide," Professor Akcam said.
From: Baghdasarian