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GREEK CYPRUS CRIMINALIZES DENIAL OF ALLEGED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Today's Zaman, Turkey
April 2 2015
Greek Cyprus on Thursday made it a crime to deny claims that Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire were victims of a genocide campaign a century
ago, a move likely to rile Turkey as peace talks on the ethnically
split island remain stalled.
The Greek Cypriot parliament passed a resolution penalizing denial of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, modifying existing
legislation, which required a prior decision by an international
court to make denial a crime.
"Today is a historic day," said Yiannakis Omirou, the speaker of
parliament. "It allows parliament to restore, with unanimous decisions
and resolutions, historical truths."
The east Mediterranean island, split into a Turkish Cypriot north and
a Greek Cypriot south after a Turkish military intervention in 1974
that followed a Greek-inspired coup, was in 1975 one of the first
countries in the world to recognize the Armenian claims of genocide,
commemorated annually on April 24.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians died during World War I but says
the death toll offered by the Armenians, up to 1.5 million people,
is inflated, further denying that the deaths resulted from an act
of genocide. Ankara says Turks were also killed when Armenians took
up arms in pursuit of an independent state in collaboration with the
Russian forces then invading eastern Anatolia.
Armenia, on the other hand, accuses the Ottoman authorities at the
time of systematically massacring large numbers of Armenians, then
deporting many more, including women, children, the elderly and the
infirm, in terrible conditions on so-called death marches.
The issue has long been a source of tension between Turkey and several
Western countries, especially the United States and France, both home
to large populations of the ethnic Armenian diaspora. Greek Cyprus
also has an Armenian population.
The Greek Cypriot government has been at loggerheads with Turkey for
decades. Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations have lived estranged in
the south and north, respectively, since 1974, but seeds of division
were sown earlier when a power-sharing government crumbled amid
violence in 1963.
http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_greek-cyprus-criminalizes-denial-of-alleged-armenian-genocide_376938.html
Today's Zaman, Turkey
April 2 2015
Greek Cyprus on Thursday made it a crime to deny claims that Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire were victims of a genocide campaign a century
ago, a move likely to rile Turkey as peace talks on the ethnically
split island remain stalled.
The Greek Cypriot parliament passed a resolution penalizing denial of
genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, modifying existing
legislation, which required a prior decision by an international
court to make denial a crime.
"Today is a historic day," said Yiannakis Omirou, the speaker of
parliament. "It allows parliament to restore, with unanimous decisions
and resolutions, historical truths."
The east Mediterranean island, split into a Turkish Cypriot north and
a Greek Cypriot south after a Turkish military intervention in 1974
that followed a Greek-inspired coup, was in 1975 one of the first
countries in the world to recognize the Armenian claims of genocide,
commemorated annually on April 24.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians died during World War I but says
the death toll offered by the Armenians, up to 1.5 million people,
is inflated, further denying that the deaths resulted from an act
of genocide. Ankara says Turks were also killed when Armenians took
up arms in pursuit of an independent state in collaboration with the
Russian forces then invading eastern Anatolia.
Armenia, on the other hand, accuses the Ottoman authorities at the
time of systematically massacring large numbers of Armenians, then
deporting many more, including women, children, the elderly and the
infirm, in terrible conditions on so-called death marches.
The issue has long been a source of tension between Turkey and several
Western countries, especially the United States and France, both home
to large populations of the ethnic Armenian diaspora. Greek Cyprus
also has an Armenian population.
The Greek Cypriot government has been at loggerheads with Turkey for
decades. Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations have lived estranged in
the south and north, respectively, since 1974, but seeds of division
were sown earlier when a power-sharing government crumbled amid
violence in 1963.
http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_greek-cyprus-criminalizes-denial-of-alleged-armenian-genocide_376938.html