ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Ministry calls ADL decision baseless

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Aug 23 2007

Turkish Foreign Ministry calls ADL decision baseless

On Monday, the ADL said it has shifted its long held position, and
now considered the events of 1915 as an act of genocide carried out
by the Ottoman Empire against its Armenian citizens.

Güncelleme: 11:49 TSÝ 23 Aðustos 2007 Perþembe

ANKARA – The decision by the US group the Anti Defamation League
(ADL) to acknowledged the so called Armenia genocide had no basis in
either history or law, a spokesman for Turkish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (MFA) said Wednesday.
Haberin devamý

The definition of the events of 1915 events as genocide was both
historically and legally baseless, the spokesman said.

`The ADL claimed in its statement that if the word genocide had
existed then, the events of 1915 would have been called genocide,’
the spokesman said. `The statement also said that a congressional
resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will
not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians and may put at
risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral
relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States.’

The ADL’s attempt to rewrite the history is quite contradictory, the
spokesman said, and was an insult to the memories of the victims of
the Holocaust.

The spokesman said Turkey had received no response to an invitation
issued to Armenia to establish a joint commission to investigate the
issue.