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Turkish scholars apologise for Armenian genocide
by Scott Gilbreath ~ December 9th, 2008
Three Turkish academics and one writer have violated Turkey’s biggest taboo by issuing a public apology for the mass killings suffered by Armenians beginning in 1915. In the recent past, Turkey has prosecuted public figures who dare even to admit that the genocide happened.
It reads: “My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them.”
The contents expose its authors – three scholars, Ahmet Insel, Baskin Oran and Cengiz Aktar, and a journalist, Ali Bayramoglu – to the wrath of the Turkish state, which has prosecuted writers, including the Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, for supporting Armenian genocide claims.
Predictably, ultra-nationalists have denounced the apology, calling it a “betrayal” and “an insult to the Turkish nation”.
British journalist Nicholas Birch writes that many Turks display a “shocking disparity” between what they say in public and what they say in private about the treatment of Armenians during World War I.
In the once heavily Armenian areas in the southeast of the country, villagers freely admit that what happened amounted to mass murder on a grand scale. “Our grandfathers killed them and moved in,” one imam in a village near Silvan told me. “Their bones are still visible at the foot of that cliff over there.”
One of the four signatories to the letter of apology, Baskın Oran, was among those arguing last month that Turkey could be a prosperous nation today if its Greek and Armenian citizens had not been deported and killed in the early 20th century.
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December 10th, 2008 at 04:48 PM
[...] WELL DONE! BRAVO! Turkish scholars apologise for Armenian genocide …. [...]