TURKEY’S ERDOGAN TO MEET ARMENIAN, JEWISH LEADERS IN NEW YORK
World Bulletin, Turkey
Sept 22 2014
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet Armenian
Archbishop Khajag Barsamian and a committee from the World Jewish
Congress.
World Bulletin / News Desk
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to meet with Jewish
and Armenian representatives in New York during his visit to the 69th
session of the United Nations General Assembly for Climate Summit.
Th summit will commence of September 22 and end on October 1, with
Erdogan expected to meet a committee from the World Jewish Congress
which will include Ronald Steven Lauder on the second day of his visit.
Erdogan is also scheduled to meet Armenian Archbishop Khajag Barsamian
of Diocese of Armenian Church of America (Eastern) and the president
of the Fund for Armenian Relief.
In May, Erdogan stopped short of an apology for the incidents of 1915,
which led to an unknown number of people dying in civil strife after
the Ottoman Empire approved a deportation law for Armenians on April
24 of that year.
Armenian lobby groups particularly in the West have been campaigning
to have the incident recognized as a ‘genocide’, an accusation
Turkey denies.
However, ahead of the anniversary of the incident, Erdogan said
“Regardless of their ethnic or religious origins, we pay tribute,
with compassion and respect, to all Ottoman citizens who lost their
lives in the incidents of 1915.”
The message was welcomed by Armenian intellectuals and the Armenian
Patriarchate in Turkey as a positive step.
The 1915 incidents took place during World War I, when a portion
of the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with
invading Russians and rose up against the Ottoman authority. The
uprisings were followed by a decision by the Ottoman-era officials
to relocate the Armenians living in eastern Anatolia.