The Guardian View on Turkey and the Armenians: History Matters

THE GUARDIAN – EDITORIAL: The battle over the word genocide is all but won, but the official Turkish state remains in denial

It is a hard thing to admit that the state to which you belong was founded on a crime and that the history taught in your schools is full of lies. Yet there is no redemption without repentance and, on the centenary of the beginning of the genocidal campaign against the Armenians, it is sad to record that Turkey has still not faced the facts about what happened in 1915. The answer is quite simple in outline, if complex in its dreadful detail. The Armenians, who had lived in Anatolia since long before Turks arrived from central Asia, were killed, deported, or forcibly converted to Islam. Estimates suggest that at least 600,000 perished, while hundreds of thousands were expelled from or fled the Turkish lands, never to return. » | Editorial | Thursday, April 23, 2015

Turkish Academics in Apology to Armenians
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

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>

Church Leader Wants Christians to Celebrate Easter on Same Day
ECUMENICAL NEWS INTERNATIONAL (ENI): Rome – Lebanon-based Armenian Orthodox leader Aram I has at a Vatican meeting with Pope Benedict XVI proposed that the world's churches set a common date for Easter, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. 



"There are no special doctrinal problems to achieve this goal, but only problems of the calendar," Aram, who heads the Catholicosate of Cilicia of the Armenian Apostolic Church, told journalists in Rome at the end of his 23-27 November visit to Rome. 



In most years, Christians celebrate Easter on two different dates. One is marked by most Protestants and Roman Catholics, and the other by most Orthodox churches. 



Catholicos Aram said he believed an ecumenical initiative to celebrate Easter on the same day would help give visible expression to Christian unity. >>> Luigi Sandri | December 3, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Italy)

A Possible Three-Year Jail Term for for Ragip Zarakolu for Promoting Reconciliation Between Turks and Armenians!
THE GUARDIAN:
· British author fears attack over Armenian book
· Ankara accepts need for change, says Labour MEP

Nearly two years after the internationally acclaimed author Orhan Pamuk narrowly escaped imprisonment for statements that were thought to "insult Turkishness", the publisher of a British writer goes on trial today accused of the same charge.

Ragip Zarakolu is facing up to three years in prison for publishing a book - promoting reconciliation between Turks and Armenians - by George Jerjian, a writer living in London.

Jerjian's book, The Truth Will Set Us Free, which was translated into Turkish in 2005, chronicles the life of his Armenian grandmother who survived the early 20th century massacres of Armenians thanks to an Ottoman soldier. The historical account has prompted as much controversy among the Armenian diaspora, not least in the US, as it has in Turkey. Trial of publisher revives row over Turkish 'insult' law >>> By Helena Smith in Athens

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