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  • Genocide? Turkey's last Armenian village unmoved

    WebIndia, India
    Oct 2 2005

    Genocide? Turkey's last Armenian village unmoved
    Vakifli Turkey | October 02, 2005 9:31:51 AM IST


    The European Parliament might want Turkey to recognise a 1915
    massacre of Armenians as genocide, but the people of the last
    remaining Armenian village in the country have other things on their
    minds -- oranges.

    Of all the towns and villages once inhabited by Armenians across
    eastern Turkey under the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire, only the
    picturesque village of Vakifli remains, nestled in the foothills of
    the Musa Mountains overlooking the eastern corner of the
    Mediterranean Sea and within sight of the Syrian border.

    For the influential Armenian diaspora, Musa Mountain is a source of
    pride as one of the few places where Christian Armenians resisted
    deportations that killed many thousands.

    The European Parliament this week became the latest international
    body to call on Turkey to recognise the killings as genocide; a
    political slap in the face for Ankara which is due to start European
    Union membership talks yesterday.

    ''Of course it saddens us when the European Parliament makes such a
    decision,'' said Vakifli village headman Berc Kartun ''Isn't it over
    yet? ... Ninety years have passed and as an Armenian, I think it
    should be over and done with.'' Smoking and playing cards in the
    plain, white-walled tea-house surrounded by lush orange groves
    stretching down to the shores of the Mediterranean, other villagers
    said they were sick of foreigners harping on about genocide.

    ''Are there any citizens of Turkey who think that way, any Armenians
    here who think that way?'' asked 72-year-old Musa Emekliyan. ''What I
    am worried about it is what will happen to my oranges, will they sell
    this year.''

    RAIN NOT RESOLUTIONS

    Turkey sees an international campaign led by the Armenian diaspora to
    blacken its name behind the claims of genocide.

    Turkish nationalists also fear the EU's calls for minority rights are
    a repeat of Western meddling that ended in war and the break-up of
    the Ottoman Empire.

    With Russian forces advancing across the eastern frontier, in 1915
    Istanbul's Ottoman rulers ordered local Armenians to be sent to Syria
    and Lebanon, fearing they might side with the Russians. Many were
    killed or died from deprivation.
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