EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT CONFERENCE ON THE ASSYRIAN GENOCIDE
Assyrian International News Agency AINA
April 3 2007
On March, 26th, 2007 a conference on the Assyrian Genocide (Seyfo)
was held in the European Parliament in Brussels. Under the theme
"Genocide, Denial and the Right for Recognition" several specialists
had been invited to speak on the Seyfo and its coherence to nowadays
in terms of Turkey’s request for membership in the European Union.
Mrs. Eva-Britt Svensson of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
who organized along with the SEYFO Center the conference, stressed
in her talk that her party struggles in its work to put pressure on
Turkey to recognize the genocide perpetrated against the Assyrians
in 1915 in order to stop further discriminations according to the
Copenhague Criteria. Accordingly, the EP can not allow to accept a
potential member not meeting the set measures.
Additionally, the head of the SEYFO Center, Mr. Sabri Atman started
his talk with the murder of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink as an
example for recent attacks against minorities living in Turkey. In
saying "Turkey is afraid of its past", he summed up that treatment
and challenged the Turkish state to take the ethnic diversity within
the own country as a key for access into the EU.
The Swedish Professor David Gaunt presented in his speech the historic
events, which he has collected and presents in his book "Massacres,
Resistance, Protectors", surrounding the Assyrian Genocide.
Mr. Markus Ferber, a German politician and member of the EP talked on
the current political discussion towards the negotiation with Turkey.
He emphasized that the recognition of the genocide against the Assyrian
people has to be set as admission criteria by the European Union due to
ensure the cultural diversity of which Europe and its identity consists
of. Herewith he pointed out that the Treaty of Lausanne does not define
clearly the treatment towards the non-Muslims in Turkey. Therefore
the EP has to urge the Turkish government to set precise remarks on
the rights of the Assyrians and all other minorities in the country
and put them into practice according to the European standards.
Eventually, Mr. Willy Fature, director of Human Rights Without
Frontiers, focused in his speech on the debate about the genocide
issue in the Belgian scene. By saying "that the Armenian Genocide
and Assyrian Genocide are two sides of the same coin and can not be
separated from each other. They are the same genocide," he recommended
to the Assyrian organizations amongst the other nations to struggle
together for the recognition to prohibit racism and negationism within
the EU.
After having heard the different views on Turkey’s position towards
the Assyrian Genocide (Seyfo) and thus the behavior towards the
Christians living in Turkey, the moderator of the conference Miss
Nicme Seven presented a letter of the Turkish Embassy addressed to
Mr. Ferber. The Ambassador of the Permanent Delegation of Turkey
to the European Union firstly claimed in that letter that both the
GUE/NGL group and Assyrians in Belgium had nothing to do with the held
conference, whereas the vice-chairwoman of GUE/NGL joined the panel
herself and members of the Assyrian community in Brussels supported
the organization of that event. Furthermore, Mrs. Svensson explained
that she got the same letter as well not knowing the sources the
ambassador took his false information from. Basically, the letter was
appealing to Mr. Ferber to not let the conference take place due to
"a pre-judged and ill-intentioned designation" as the letter signed
by Mr. Volkan Bozkir ends.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
