E.U. Demands Turkey Admit Genocide

ANKARA, Turkey – Hundreds of thousands gathered at Yerevan yesterday to mark 90 years since the murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and to add their voices to an international campaign to press Turkey to admit genocide.Authorities led by President Kocharyan hoped for 1.5 million people to visit a giant hilltop memorial in the capital of Armenia as the former Soviet republic seeks international recognition of the genocide of its people under Turkish rule.“Recognition and condemnation is not just an issue for Armenia today but one of international politics,” Mr. Kocharyan said.Many Armenians from around the world converged on Yerevan for remembrance ceremonies and to join the Christian republic’s 3.8 million inhabitants in a minute of silence.While Turkey acknowledges the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of deaths it denies there was a state-sponsored extermination plan, a stance that has complicated its hopes of joining the European Union. Accession talks are due to start later this year.France, one of 15 countries to recognize the Armenian genocide, has called upon Turkey to make an effort to set the record straight before it can join the Union. Faced with growing pressure from within the E.U., Turkey has for the first time invited international scrutiny of its past.Prime Minister Erdogan wrote to the Armenian leader this month proposing a joint commission to investigate the claims of genocide.“Teams of historians from both sides should conduct studies in these [Turkey’s] archives. We do not want future generations to live under the shadow of continued hatred and resentment,” Mr. Erdogan said.Western diplomats hailed the move as a breakthrough, but critics have shrugged it off as a ploy, saying that incriminating documents have been purged from the Ottoman archives.Mr. Kocharian, who has not officially responded to Mr. Erdogan’s letter, told a Russian television channel that its contents did not “offer hope that our problems will be solved any time soon.”On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turkish government arrested hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders, most of whom were quickly executed. This was followed by the mass relocation of ethnic Armenians from Anatolia through desert to Mesopotamia and what is today Syria.Starvation, disease, attacks by bandits, and brutality of the escorting troops resulted in mass fatalities. Western sources estimate there were at least 1 million deaths in what has been referred to as the first genocide of the 20th century, though Armenians put the figure at 1.5 million.Ankara maintains that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed in “civil strife” when the Armenians rose against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.In one key change, E.U.-inspired laws have enabled a small and vocal group of Turkish academics and intellectuals to challenge the official version of what happened in 1915.

E.U. Demands Turkey Admit Genocide

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