ARMENIA MARKS OTTOMAN MASS KILLING
Alalam News Network, Iran
April 24 2008
YEREVAN, April 24–Armenians on Thursday mark the 93rd anniversary
of mass killings of their compatriots under the Ottoman Empire, an
event many countries have recognized as genocide despite Turkey’s
angry rejection of the label.
Thousands were expected to attend ceremonies in the Armenian capital
Yerevan and in other countries to commemorate the killings, which
began in 1915 and lead to a mass exodus of Armenians from what is
now eastern Turkey.
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and other officials were to lead a
ceremony on a hilltop memorial in central Yerevan, where an eternal
flame has burned since its construction in 1965, when Armenia was
part of the Soviet Union.
On Wednesday night, more than 10,000 young people carrying torches
and candles marched through the streets of Yerevan demanding Turkey
recognize the killings as genocide.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey rejects the killings constituted genocide, saying that 300,000
Armenians and at least an equal number of Turks were killed in civil
strife in 1915-1917 when the Christian Armenians, backed by Russia,
rose up against the Ottomans.
The dispute has been a major obstacle in relations between Turkey and
Armenia, which have no diplomatic ties and whose border has remained
closed for more than a decade.
It has also complicated relations between EU-aspirant Turkey and
many Western countries, especially those with large ethnic Armenian
communities such as the US and France.
More than 20 countries, including Belgium, Canada, Poland and
Switzerland, have officially recognized the killings as genocide.
In 2006, French lawmakers voted to make it a criminal offense to deny
that Armenians were victims of genocide.
But many countries, including Britain and the US, refuse to use the
term to describe the events, mindful of relations with Turkey.
The US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s endorsement of a resolution
labeling the killings as genocide last October sparked fury in Ankara,
which recalled its ambassador to Washington.
Under intense pressure from the White House, the authors of the bill
later asked Congress not to hold a debate on the issue.