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  • Turkey Criticizes Obama Message; Says Remarks On Massacre Failed To

    TURKEY CRITICIZES OBAMA MESSAGE; SAYS REMARKS ON MASSACRE FAILED TO NOTE SLAIN TURKS
    By Suzan Fraser, Associated Press

    The Boston Globe
    April 26, 2009 Sunday

    ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's president said yesterday that President
    Obama Enhanced Coverage LinkingPresident Obama -Search using:

    Biographies Plus News

    News, Most Recent 60 Days failed to honor Turks slain by Armenians
    in a message remembering the dead in massacres nearly a century ago.

    Obama

    Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama -Search using: Biographies Plus News
    News, Most Recent 60 Days on Friday refrained from branding the World
    War I-era massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey a
    "genocide," and instead referred to the killings that began in 1915 as
    "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century."

    The phrasing of Obama's Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama's -Search using:
    Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days statement attracted
    heightened scrutiny, as using the "genocide" label could have angered
    US ally Turkey and possibly disturbed reconciliation talks between
    Turkey and Armenia.

    President Abdullah Gul Enhanced Coverage LinkingAbdullah Gul -Search
    using: Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days of Turkey said,
    however, that Obama Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama -Search using:
    Biographies Plus News News, Most Recent 60 Days should also have
    expressed sympathy for the "hundreds of thousands of Turks and Muslims"
    killed around the same period, according to comments reported by the
    state-run Anatolia news agency.

    "Everyone's pain must be shared," Gul reportedly said outside a
    meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria. "It is not possible for politicians,
    for statesmen to make decisions on historic events."

    Turkey's Foreign Ministry also contended that certain points in Obama's
    Enhanced Coverage LinkingObama's -Search using: Biographies Plus News
    News, Most Recent 60 Days statement were "unacceptable."

    "It should not be forgotten that several hundreds of thousands
    of Turks have lost their lives as well," the ministry said in a
    statement. "Common history of the Turkish and Armenian nations has
    to be assessed solely through impartial and scientific data, and
    historians must base their evaluations only on such material."

    Many scholars view the events in the final years of the Ottoman Empire
    as the first genocide of the 20th century.

    Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, contending that
    the toll has been inflated and that the casualties were victims
    of civil war. It says Turks also suffered losses, at the hands of
    Armenian gangs.

    Turkey and Armenia agreed Wednesday on a road map for normalizing
    relations, but it was not immediately clear how they would tackle
    the bitter dispute over the Ottoman-era killings of ethnic Armenians.

    Turkey and Armenia have had no diplomatic ties since closing their
    border in 1993 because of a Turkish protest of Armenia's occupation
    of land claimed by Azerbaijan.
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