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  • BEIRUT: Armenians protest as Erdogan arrives in Beirut

    Daily Star - Lebanon
    June 16 2005

    Armenians protest as Erdogan arrives in Beirut

    Demonstrators demand Turkey acknowledge and apologize for Ottoman-era genocide
    By Rym Ghazal
    Daily Star staff
    Thursday, June 16, 2005


    BEIRUT: Hundreds of Lebanese Armenians waved Armenian flags and
    burned Turkish flags to send a message to visiting Turkish Prime
    Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to acknowledge the Armenian genocide."
    "Animals are not welcome," read one demonstrator's sign under a
    picture of the visiting Turkish premier. The protestors gathered
    in Bourj Hammoud, an Armenian suburb of Beirut, and shouted slogans
    condemning the 1915 Ottoman massacre of the Armenians.

    The demonstration, organized by the Armenian Tashnag Party, was
    not a protest against the actual visit, "as diplomatic relations
    are respected," said a Tashnag Party spokesperson, but rather was
    intended as a "reminder" to the Turkish and the Lebanese governments
    about the genocide that reportedly killed 1.5 million Armenians.

    "By Turkey ignoring what happened ... it is like a painful continuation
    of the genocide," said the spokesperson.

    Hratch Balekijan, one of the protestors, came carrying a poster of
    Erdogan depicted as Pinocchio.

    Balekijan said: "Turkey keeps lying about what happened and Lebanon
    keeps ignoring our voices."

    Balekijan, like the rest of the demonstrators, is frustrated at how,
    after 100 years of demonstrations over the killings, some countries
    like Lebanon have not yet officially acknowledged the massacre as
    genocide.

    Lebanon is home to the Arab world's largest Armenian community, made
    up of descendants of survivors of the 1915-1917 massacres in Turkey.
    There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese Armenians, half as many as
    before the 1975-1990 civil war.

    While waiting in the airport for the Turkish prime minister's arrival,
    Turkish Ambassador Irfan Acar told The Daily Star: "We have been
    saying that since the genocide remains a controversial issue, we are
    inviting historians from both sides, Turkish and Armenian, to meet
    and come and view our archives and reach a final conclusion."

    "Instead of burning flags and going to the streets, there is a more
    civilized way of dealing with this issue like organizing a formal
    commission and sending it to Turkey," said Acar.

    Erdogan is expected to stay for two days, during which he will hold
    talks with Lebanese officials and participate in the Arab Economic
    Forum.

    The Armenian slaughter remains a controversial issue. Several countries
    like France have recognized the massacres as genocide - a term Turkey
    fiercely rejects - and Brussels has urged Ankara to face its past
    and expand freedom of speech.

    But Ankara last month squelched a landmark conference that was to
    have been held at Istanbul's prestigious Bogazici University and
    would have questioned the official line on the mass killings.
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