Posted on 05/08/2006 9:34:00 PM PDT by Wiz
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to France and Canada to protest moves in both countries to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by Turks in the early 1900s as genocide.
The ambassadors were recalled for a short time to discuss what Ankara calls the "baseless allegations of Armenian genocide" in France and Canada, Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said Monday. They would return to their posts following the consultations, he said.
Armenians say that 1.5 million of their people were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, which Armenians and several nations around the world recognize as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey denies that the massacres were genocide, saying the death toll is inflated and Armenians were killed in civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Turkey, which has no diplomatic ties with Armenia, is facing increasing pressure to fully acknowledge the event, particularly as it seeks membership in the European Union. The issue is extremely sensitive in Turkey, and Turks have faced prosecution for saying the killings were genocide.
Turkey has recently criticized Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for remarks he made in support of recognizing the mass killings as genocide, and warned that such statements threatened Turkish-Canadian relations.
Turkey has also warned French legislators not to approve a bill to be considered next week that would make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime. It is already an offense in France to deny the Holocaust of World War II.
In 2001, Turkey canceled millions of dollars worth of defense deals with French companies after lawmakers in France recognized the killings as genocide.
The United States, which has a large Armenian diaspora community, has not declared the killings a genocide.
The Armenian debate ? Well I suppose its them or the Calvinists..............
Both of their claims are true: the death toll (as reckoned by the Armenians) is inflated and many deaths were due to civil unrest.
Of course the Turkish govt would have you believe that the death toll was much smaller than it actually was, and downplay the systematic portions of the killings and forced exile.
The truth lies in between, but both sides cling to their propaganda.
Why haven't we? Because the Turks weren't inclined to keep immaculate records like the Nazi?!
"The United States, which has a large Armenian diaspora community, has not declared the killings a genocide."
It's because the United States has no integrity in this matter.
Doesn't take much study to understand these killings really happened, and that many, many young women were crucified by
the Turks.
Sources, please. TIA.
In addition to the U.S., Israel and Britain don't recognize it as genocide either. (I think only about 20 countries actually do)
Prof. Bernard Lewis, a much respected conservative historian who Bush invited to the White House, also disagrees with the genocide label. http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/lewis.html
Nearly 50 Turkish diplomats, their wives and children were killed by Armenian terrorists in the 1970s/80s over this issue.
Most countries have trouble admitting unpleasant things about themselves. Even those few who do criticize themselves and their ancestors have a problem when it's foreigners who are attacking them.
There are already two democratic countries in Middle East now: Israel and Iraq. Why did you ignore those two, or was that by purpose? The democracy of Turkey is not really democratic, and under strong influence and control by the military.
There is also no hope for Turkey in NATO. What happened during the early days of Iraq War? Turkey denied access of US Armed Force from the north risking lives of our patriotic soldiers fighting the dictator of Iraq.
US does not claim it genocide, but president Bush still claims it a tragedy. The only reason US does not claim it genocide yet is due to the geopolitical factors of the region, especially Iran.
Meanwhile, why are you calling our Armenian Christian brothers "terrorists" when they have been terrorized by the holocaust the IslamoNazi Turks done in the past and illegally took away the western territories of our Armenian Christian brothers as well as Constantinople? Are you also going to call Israel a terrorist country for dealing with Nazis after war? I feel a strong anti-semitism within your claims.
ping
It was personally witnessed by our American counsel in Harput, I believe it was.
I've always claimed that the Germans learned how from the Turks as they were plenty cozy during WW1.
Wow, exaggerating much? What purpose did it serve for Armenians to murder Turkish diplomants and their families in the 1980s? The men and women they killed weren't even alive in 1915, and clearly had nothing to do with the Ottoman Empire deaths of the Armenians. Sorry, but they were terrorists (not my personal opinion, but the US government's opinion). That doesn't take away from the tragedy of 1915, and I agree with Bush's statements on the issue.
As for anti-semitism, you do realize Israel doesn't recognize the Armenian deaths as genocide? Here's a quote from former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres:
"We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide."
http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/peres.html
"We lived in Palou [an Armenian enclave in Turkey], in the mountains. My father was a businessman. He'd go into the country selling pots and pans, butter, dairy products. The Turks, they ride in one day and get all the men together, bring them to a church. Every man came back out, hands tied behind them. Then they slaughter them, like sheep, with long knives."
"Armenian children had a strong chance of survival" during the period of the starvation, abuse and loss of more than a million Armenians that took place in the early 20th century, said Kaiser, a German scholar of the genocide."
"Armenian girls and boys younger than age 13 were often spared, however, because the Turkish government felt it was "possible for Armenian children to be assimilated into Turkish culture," Kaiser said."
"But hundreds of thousands of older Armenians were removed from their villages and provinces within Turkish territories, supposedly to be "relocated" to distant and isolated pockets of the empire such as Azur."
"Instead, the Armenians were subject to a "systematic exposure to starvation, dehydration and contagious diseases," Kaiser said."
The Armenian Genocide in the U.S Archives, 1915 - 1918 Available From the National Archives and the Library of Congress - the most comprehensive documentation in the world on the Armenian Genocide.
I recently acquired some really old National Geographics. One which was printed not long after the killings, was very graphic, informative, and tragic in the information it provided. I don't know if there is any way to access of National Geographics on the web, but perhaps they are on microfilm in a local library. Terrible story, which I had not been very aware of until I read it there.
The Armenian genocide was one chapter in the vile history of the death cult monsters.
Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.
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I think tragedy is far too light a word to describe what happened to the Armenians.
"Sources, please. TIA."
Lindy Avakian, "Cross and the Crescent" (Fresno: Golden West Publishers, 1998)
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