|
ISTANBUL, May 27 (AFP) - 23h07 - Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday tried to
defuse a crisis over squelching a debate on the mass
killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire which
has provoked concern in the EU.
A landmark conference questioning the official line
on the mass killings that had been due to open
Wednesday at Istanbul's prestigious Bogazici
University was postponed after Justice Minister
Cemil Cicek accused the participants of "treason."
Cicek condemned the initiative as "a stab in the
back of the Turkish nation" and said the organizers
of the conference of Turkish academics and
intellectuals who dispute Ankara's version of the
1915-1917 massacres deserved to be prosecuted.
The minister's intervention sparked concern within
the EU, which is due to open membership talks with
Ankara later this year, about Turkey's commitment to
democratic norms.
Erdogan tried Friday to distance his government from
Cicek's statements.
"Cemil Cicek is the spokesman of our government. He
made a statement but not a statement of the
government, it was a personal statement," Erdogan
was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
The killings, one of the most controversial episodes
in Ottoman history, is rarely discussed in schools
and the aborted conference would have been the first
by Turkish personalities to question the official
stand on the events.
Several countries have recognized the massacres as
genocide -- a term Turkey fiercely rejects -- and
Brussels has urged Ankara to face its past and
expand freedom of speech.
The incident follows a brutal police clampdown on a
women's demonstration in Istanbul in March, which
also raised tensions between the European Union and
Turkey.
AFP
Top |
® 