THE INDEPENDENT: Intellectuals break taboo to acknowledge genocide by Ottoman Turks
Around 200 Turkish intellectuals and academics are to apologise on the internet today for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the First World War, in the most public sign yet that Turkey's most sensitive taboo is slowly melting away.
"My conscience does not accept the denial of the great catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915," the text prepared by the group reads. "I reject this injustice and ... empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them."
Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed during the collapse of the Ottoman empire, but insists they were victims of civil strife and that Muslim Turks also died. Most Western historians agree that the ethnic cleansing that killed roughly 700,000 Armenians amounted to genocide. >>> By Nicholas Birch in Istanbul | December 15, 2008
BBC: Turkish PM Scorns Armenia Apology
Turkey's prime minister has criticised a Turkish internet petition which apologises for the "great catastrophe" of 1915 when Armenians were massacred.
The petition was launched by more than 200 Turkish academics and newspaper columnists earlier this week.
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "I find it unreasonable to apologise when there is no reason".
Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915. Turkey denies that it was "genocide". >>> | December 17, 2008
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