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The New York Times: Turkey's Stance Is Hard To Fathom

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  • The New York Times: Turkey's Stance Is Hard To Fathom

    THE NEW YORK TIMES: TURKEY'S STANCE IS HARD TO FATHOM

    PanARMENIAN.Net
    19.05.2006 16:09 GMT+04:00

    /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey's self-destructive obsession with denying
    the Armenian Genocide seems to have no limits. The Turks pulled out
    of a NATO exercise this week because the Canadian prime minister used
    the term "genocide" in reference to the mass killings of Armenians
    in Turkey during and after World War I.

    Before that, the Turkish ambassador to France was temporarily recalled
    to protest a French bill that would make it illegal to deny that
    the Armenian genocide occurred. And before that, a leading Turkish
    novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with "insulting Turkish identity"
    for referring to the genocide (the charges were dropped after an
    international outcry), The New York Times writes.

    "The preponderance of serious scholarship outside Turkey accepts that
    more than a million Armenians perished between 1914 and 1923 in a
    regime-sponsored campaign. Turkey's continued refusal to countenance
    even a discussion of the issue stands as a major obstacle to restoring
    relations with neighboring Armenia and to claiming Turkey's rightful
    place in Europe and the West. It is time for the Turks to realize
    that the greater danger to them is denying history.

    Turkey's stance is hard to fathom. Each time the Turks lash out, new
    questions arise about Turkey's claim to a place in the European Union,
    and the Armenian Diaspora becomes even more adamant in demanding a
    public reckoning over what happened. Granted, genocide is a difficult
    crime for any nation to acknowledge.

    But it is absurd to treat any reference to the issue within Turkey as a
    crime and to scream "lie!" every time someone mentions genocide. By the
    same token, we do not see the point of the French law to ban genocide
    denial. Historical truths must be established through dispassionate
    research and debate, not legislation, even if some of those who
    question the evidence do so for insidious motives.

    But the Turkish government considers even discussion of the issue
    to be a grave national insult, and reacts to it with hysteria. Five
    journalists who criticized a court's decision to shut down an Istanbul
    conference on the massacre of Armenians were arrested for insulting
    the courts. Charges against four were subsequently dropped, but a
    fifth remains on trial," the article says.
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