Associated Press
Sept 25 2005
Forum examining Armenian massacre is a first for Turkey
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Benjamin Harvey
Associated Press
Istanbul, Turkey- Scholars held the first-ever public discussions in
Turkey on Saturday about the early 20th-century massacre of
Armenians, choosing words carefully, avoiding emotional language and
picking apart history year by year at a gathering that nationalists
denounced as traitorous.
The European Union called the academic conference a test of freedom
of expression in Turkey, which is hoping to begin talks for
membership in the bloc next month.
The participants were all Turkish speakers and included members of
Turkey’s Armenian minority like Hrant Dink, the editor-in-chief of
Agos, a weekly Armenian newspaper in Istanbul. Some 70,000 Armenians
are living in Istanbul.
The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May and
again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the conference
closed and demanded to know the academic qualifications of the
speakers. Organizers skirted the court order by moving the
conference.
Several governments around the world have recognized the killings of
as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as
genocide.
Turkey vehemently denies the charge, admitting that many Armenians
were killed, but saying the death toll is inflated and that Armenians
were killed along with Turks in civil unrest and intercommunal
fighting as the Ot toman Empire collapsed between 1915 and 1923.
Dozens of officers in riot gear kept hundreds of shouting protesters
at bay. Some protesters pelted arriving panelists with eggs and
rotten tomatoes.
Inside, the audience of more than 300 people was restrained, as only
those invited by the organizing committee and preapproved members of
the media were allowed past security.
The issue has been taboo for many years in Turkey, with those who
speak out against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish
court. But an increasing number of Turkish academics have called for
a review of the killings in a country where many see the Ottoman
Empire as a symbol of Turkish greatness.
The panelists, all Turkish speakers, carefully avoided any emotional
language during the first day of the two-day conference.
“Everyone waits for you to pronounce the genocide word – if you do,
one side applauds and the other won’t listen,” Halil Berktay, program
coordinator of the history department at Sabanci University, said at
the conference Saturday.