Конференция по армянскому вопросу в Турции,

[Sehnsucht]

думаю у нас найдется жест для ответа этим серым волчатам..

[Злодиюка]

Да там волками то и не пахнет.. так... шакалы в горошек...

[Чатский]

Без пяти минут европейцы...

[Semetoja]

BBC

Turkey: Views expressed at Ottoman Armenians conference, protesters throw eggs

454 words

25 September 2005

12:09

BBC Monitoring European

English

© 2005 The British Broadcasting Corporation. All Rights Reserved. No material may be reproduced except with the express permission of The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Text of report in English by Turkish news agency Anatolia

Istanbul, 25 September: "Ittihat and Terakki Party (Party of Union and Progress) had a plan to purify whole Anatolia from the non-Turks, starting from the Aegean Region, before the World War I, and this plan was carried out in entire Anatolia during the years of the war (World War I)", argued Associate Professor Taner Akcam of Minnesota University.

Taking the floor on the second day of the conference titled "The Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire" held at Istanbul's Bilgi University, Akcam said that the relocation decision was made at the end of long discussions and debates.

"The Ottoman documents indicate that the decision to relocate the Armenians was made to end a deeper problem defined as the 'eastern problem' and to end the dissolution process of the Ottoman Empire. This decision was not a result of a need that erupted during the war. There are many documents in hand with respect to the destruction of Armenians," claimed Akcam.

On the other hand, Dr Ahmet Kuyas of Galatasaray University referred to the four members of the Ittihat and Terakki Party, and said that a serious massacre was made those days. According to Kuyas, the architect of this massacre was Enver Pasha. Kuyas expressed his view that the other three people who were responsible for these massacres were Talat Pasha, Dr Bahattin Sakir and Dr Nazim.

Also speaking at the conference, Professor Baskin Oran of Ankara University's Political Sciences Department said: "Concept of class, criticisms of Ataturk, Cyprus, socialism, communism and Kurdistan are no more taboos in Turkey. There was only one taboo left, and it was Armenian issue. Now, it is no more a taboo."

Referring to Armenian Diaspora, Oran said: "Diaspora talks about 'recognition, compensation and territory', and this prevents 'recognition'. Nobody in Turkey can think of paying compensation for things that an empire (Ottoman Empire), the alphabet of which you have abandoned, did. Moreover, territory claims are nonsense."

Oran pointed out that assassins of Turkish diplomats should not remain unpunished, and added, "assassins of 35-40 Turkish diplomats were not punished or sentenced to minor punishments. And, this caused as much reaction in Turkey as the 1915 incidents caused in Armenia. And, this was the factor which increased this taboo in Turkey."

Before the conference started, a group of people who were the members of the Grand Unity Party (BBP) threw rotten tomatoes and eggs to participants and the building where the conference is being held. Also, the audience was protested by the group.

Source: Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in English 1343 gmt 25 Sep 05

a33b8e8f

Document BBCEUP0020050925e19p002be

[Semetoja]

The Washington Post

In Istanbul, a Crack In the Wall of Denial; We're Trying to Debate the Armenian Issue

Elif Shafak

1,567 words

25 September 2005

The Washington Post

FINAL

B03

English

Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved

Iam the daughter of a Turkish diplomat -- a rather unusual character in the male-dominated foreign service in that she was a single mother. Her first appointment was to Spain, and we moved to Madrid in the early 1980s. In those days, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, known as ASALA, was staging attacks on Turkish citizens -- and diplomats in particular -- in Rome, London, Zurich, Brussels, Milan and Madrid; our cultural attache in Paris was assassinated in 1979 while walking on the Champs-Elysees. So throughout my childhood, the word "Armenian" meant only one thing to me: a terrorist who wanted to kill my mother.

Faced with hatred, I hated back. But that was as far as my feelings went. It took me years to ask the simple question: Why did the Armenians hate us?

My ignorance was not unusual. For me in those days, and for most Turkish citizens even today, my country's history began in 1923, with the founding of the modern Turkish state. The roots of the Armenians' rage -- in the massacres, atrocities and deportations that decimated Turkey's Armenian population in the last years of Ottoman rule, particularly 1915 -- were simply not part of our common historical memory.

But for me today, and for a growing number of my fellow Turks, that has changed. That is why I am in Istanbul this weekend. I came to Bosphorus University to attend the first-ever public conference in this country on what happened to the Ottoman Armenians in and after 1915. As I write, we are fighting last-minute legal maneuvers by hard-line opponents of open discussion to shut the conference down. I don't know how it will turn out -- but the fact that we are here, openly making the attempt, with at least verbal support from the prime minister and many mainstream journalists, highlights how far some in my country have come.

Until my early twenties, like many Turks living abroad, I was less interested in history than in what we described as "improving Turkey's image in the eyes of Westerners." As I began reading extensively on political and social history, I was drawn to the stories of minorities, of the marginalized and the silenced: women who resisted traditional gender roles, unorthodox Sufis persecuted for their beliefs, homosexuals in the Ottoman Empire. Gradually, I started reading about the Ottoman Armenians -- not because I was particularly interested in the literature but because I was young and rebellious, and the official ideology of Turkey told me not to.

Yet it was not until I came to the United States in 2002 and started getting involved in an Armenian-Turkish intellectuals' network that I seriously felt the need to face the charges that, beginning in 1915, Turks killed as many as 1.5 million Armenians and drove hundreds of thousands more from their homes. I focused on the literature of genocide, particularly the testimony of survivors; I watched filmed interviews at the Zoryan Institute's Armenian archives in Toronto; I talked to Armenian grandmothers, participated in workshops for reconciliation and collected stories from Armenian friends who were generous enough to entrust me with their family memories and secrets. With each step, I realized not only that atrocities had been committed in that terrible time but that their effect had been made far worse by the systematic denial that followed. I came to recognize a people's grief and to believe in the need to mourn our past together.

I also got to know other Turks who were making a similar intellectual journey. Obviously there is still a powerful segment of Turkish society that completely rejects the charge that Armenians were purposely exterminated. Some even go so far as to claim that it was Armenians who killed Turks, and so there is nothing to apologize for. These nationalist hardliners include many of our government officials, bureaucrats, diplomats and newspaper columnists.

They dominate Turkey's public image -- but theirs is only one position held by Turkish citizens, and it is not even the most common one. The prevailing attitude of ordinary people toward the "Armenian question" is not one of conscious denial; rather it is collective ignorance. These Turks feel little need to question the past as long as it does not affect their daily lives.

There is a third attitude, prevalent among Turkish youth: Whatever happened, it was a long time ago, and we should concentrate on the future rather than the past. "Why am I being held responsible for a crime my grandfather committed -- that is, if he ever did it?" they ask. They want to become friends with Armenians and push for open trade and better relations with neighboring Armenia . . . . as long as everybody forgets this inconvenient claim of genocide.

Finally, there is a fourth attitude: The past is not a bygone era that we can discard but a legacy that needs to be recognized, explored and openly discussed before Turkey can move forward. It is plain to me that, though it often goes unnoticed in Western media, there is a thriving movement in Turkish civil society toward this kind of reconciliation. The 50 historians, journalists, political scientists and activists who have gathered here in the last few days for the planned conference on Ottoman Armenians share a common belief in the need to face the atrocities of the past, no matter how distressing or dangerous, in order to create a better future for Turkey.

But it hasn't been easy, and the battle is far from over.

Over the past four years, Turks have made several attempts to address the "Armenian question." The conference planned for this weekend differed from earlier meetings in key respects: It was to be held in Istanbul itself, rather than abroad; it would be organized by three established Turkish universities rather than by progressive Armenian and Turkish expatriates; it would be conducted completely in Turkish.

Originally scheduled for May 23, it was postponed after Cemil Cicek, Turkey's minister of justice, made an angry speech before parliament, accusing organizers of "stabbing their nation in the back." But over the ensuing four months, the ruling Justice and Development Party made it clear that Cicek's remarks reflected his views, and his alone. The minister of foreign affairs, Abdullah Gul, announced that he had no problem with the expression of critical opinion and even said he would be willing to participate in the conference. (As it happens, he has been in New York in recent days, at the United Nations.)

Meanwhile, the Armenian question has been prominently featured in Turkish media. Hurriyet, the nation's most popular newspaper, ran a series of pro and con interviews on this formerly taboo subject, called "The Armenian Dossier." The upcoming trial of acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk, charged with "denigrating" Turkish identity for talking about the killing of Kurds and Armenians, has been fervently debated. Various columnists have directly apologized to the Armenians for the sufferings caused to their people by the Turks. And stories have been reported of orphaned Armenian girls who saved their lives by changing their names, converting to Islam and marrying Turks -- and whose grandchildren are unaware today of their own mixed heritage.

All this activity has triggered a nationalist backlash. That should be expected -- but organizers of the Conference on Ottoman Armenians were nevertheless surprised last week by a crafty, last-minute maneuver: a court order to postpone the conference pending the investigation of hardliners' charges that it was unfairly biased against Turkey. The cynicism of this order was clear when we learned that the three-judge panel actually made its decision on Monday; it was not made public until late Thursday, only hours before the conference was to begin.

Organizers said they would try to regroup by moving the site from Bosphorus University, a public institution, to one of the two private universities that are co-sponsors. We were encouraged by the immediate public reaction: Not only did some normally mainstream media voices denounce the court order, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in televised interviews, repeatedly criticized it as "unacceptable." "You may not like the expression of an opinion," he said, "but you can't stop it like this." Foreign Minister Gul, in New York, lamented what effect this would have on Turkey's quest to join the European Union: "There's no one better at hurting themselves than us," he said.

Whatever happens with the conference, I believe one thing remains true: Through the collective efforts of academics, journalists, writers and media correspondents, 1915 is being opened to discussion in my homeland as never before. The process is not an easy one and will disturb many vested interests. I know how hard it is -- most children from diplomatic families, confronting negative images of Turkey abroad, develop a sort of defensive nationalism, and it's especially true among those of us who lived through the years of Armenian terrorism. But I also know that the journey from denial to recognition is one that can be made.

Author's e-mail: [email protected]

Elif Shafak is a novelist and a professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. She commutes between Tucson and Istanbul.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com

Document WP00000020050925e19p0009s

[Sehnsucht]

Без пяти минут европейцы...

[Гость Джанбазеан]

[26-09-2005 12:57]

Итоги конференции, посвященной геноциду армян, турецкая пресса назвала революционными, сообщает Елена Солнцева из Стамбула. Независимая газета "Реферанс" пишет о том, что в стране впервые открыто обсуждали тему, находящуюся под запретом почти столетие. Организатор конференции турецкий историк Мурат Бегле назвал геноцид армян одной из самых мрачных страниц турецкой истории. Армянский ученый и журналист Грант Динк утверждает, что в Анатолии в годы Первой мировой войны было уничтожено свыше миллиона армян. Грант Динк сказал: "На территории Османской империи действовал секретный приказ об уничтожении всего нетурецкого населения страны". На форуме, проходившем в одном из стамбульских университетов, собралось более восьмисот ученых и преподавателей университетов. Из-за массовых демонстраций националистов конференция проходила под усиленной охраной полиции. Духовный лидер турецких армян патриарх Месроб II и премьер-министр страны Реджеп Эрдоган осудили демонстрантов.

[Sehnsucht]

а меня вот что интересует, может и наивно, но... в Турции раньше действовал же по закону запрет обсуждения, или во всяком случае упоминания слова "геноцид" и карался тюрьмой. Что с ним сделалось? Участникам не грозят какие-либо санкции с этой стороны?

[arthur]

а меня вот что интересует, может и наивно, но... в Турции раньше действовал же по закону запрет обсуждения, или во всяком случае упоминания слова "геноцид" и карался тюрьмой. Что с ним сделалось? Участникам не грозят какие-либо санкции с этой стороны?

[Злодиюка]

но не убрали судейский произвол и реальную угрозу самосуда...

[Sehnsucht]

я так и предполагала. это значит, что участники имеют основания, опасаться за себя и своиx близкиx.

[Злодиюка]

ТЕРРИ ДЭВИС: «ТУРЦИЯ И ЕВРОПА ДОЛЖНЫ СДЕРЖАТЬ СВОЕ СЛОВО»

Результатам состоящейся в стамбульском университете Билджи конференции, посвященной Геноциду армян, сегодня оценку дал Генсек СЕ Терри Дэвис. Он сделал следующее заявление:

«Хочу поздравить организаторов конференции за отвагу и решимость. Те, которые верят в современную, демократическую и уступчивую Турцию, не побоялись крайних националистов на улицах Стамбула и не позволили им заставить себя замолчать.

Я вновь повторяю, что поддерживаю позицию премьер министра Турции Реджеба Таиба Эрдогана поддерживать в Турции свободу слова. Я надеюсь, что эта позиция также будет принята во внимание при ведении позорного судебного процесса одного из известнейших турецких писателей – Орхама Памука, осужденного за высказанные им выражения относительно Айдата.

Я понимаю, что это чрезвычайно тонкий для турецких властей и общественности вопрос, однако вопросы такого рода должны решаться путем диалогов и признания правды, а не давления и агитации. Будучи членом ЕС Турция обязана уважать европейскую конвенцию о Правах человека, и я уверен, что турецкие власти не будут колебаться в деле проведения реформ в областях демократии и прав человека – в вопросе отношений Турция-Европа.

Я также надеюсь, что руководства других европейских столиц используют эту возможность, помня о своих обязательствах и сдержав свое слово”.

А1+

[Patologist]

Пустили пыль в глаза мировой общественности. Такие с позволения сказать "мероприятия" вредят делу признания Геноцида, позволяя Турции отдалить от себя проблему псевдодемократическими действиями...

Хитрый лис Эрдоган пукнул в эфир для отвода с глаз истинных целей данной конференции. Результатов от итогов данной конференции НОЛЬ, а резонанс в пользу "демократической Турции" получился огромный.

Короче турки нас обдурили в очередной раз, а мы уши развесили.

Давайте закроем эту тему.

[Злодиюка]

Я бы хотел почитать стенограммы.. интересно всё таки

[Гость Джанбазеан]

ПОГРОМЫ АРМЯН 1915 ГОДА НЕ МОГУТ РАСЦЕНИВАТЬСЯ ИНАЧЕ, КАК ГЕНОЦИД, СЧИТАЕТ ТУРЕЦКИЙ ИСТОРИК

26.09.2005 04:24

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ На прошлой неделе в Стамбульском университете Билги состоялась научная конференция «Османские армяне в период разрушения империи: вопросы научной ответственности и демократии», которая, по мнению многих экспертов, может положить начало обсуждению в турецком обществе армянского вопроса. «Мы не можем допустить, чтобы обсуждения ограничились взаимопротиворечащими мнениями: был геноцид или нет. Мы должны постараться понять, что произошло в 1915 году»,- заявил на конференции, изучающий историю Османской империи, знаменитый историк Халил Бектай и добавил, что «руководители Османской империи в начале Первой мировой войны объявили сезон охоты на армян». В свою очередь историк Фикрет Аданир открыто заявил, что погромы армян в начале 20-го века могут быть расценены как геноцид. «Это мое мнение»,- заявил он. Газета «Лос-Анджелес Таймс» пишет о выраженном главным редактором армянской газеты Стамбула «Акос» мнении о том, что «эта конференция удивит всех армян, живущих в разных странах мира. Теперь у некоторых из них появиться смелость вступить в диалог с турками, сообщает радиостанция “Свобода”. Отметим, научная конференция два раза откладывалась, в последний раз – в прошлый четверг, решением стамбульского суда. Между тем, решение суда осудил премьер-министр Турции Реджеп Тайип Эрдоган, назвав его несовместимым с нормами демократии и цивилизованного общества. Власти Турции были раскритикованы также со стороны Еврокомиссии. "Отсутствие мотивации этого решения за день до проведения конференции выглядит как еще одна провокация", - сообщила в пятницу представитель Еврокомиссии по расширению Кристина Наги.