Turkish history books discriminating Armenians may be revised

http://pn.am/mobile/eng/news/86884/

posted from Bloggeroid

Armenia no longer demands Turkey recognize the genocide of its people?

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said Yerevan is ready to establish diplomatic ties with Turkey without any preconditions, “particularly without the precondition that Turkey should recognize the Armenian genocide.”

The protocols which are meant to be ratified by the countries’ parliaments and which were signed in October in Zurich, Switzerland, mean two things: the opening of the border between the states and the establishment of diplomatic ties (“the creation of an intergovernmental bilateral commission with sub-commissions dealing with every possible area of cooperation between the two countries,” the protocol says).

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Europe, secularism, Armenia...

Hopefully I'll be able to get back here with some original stuff in the near future. I have a few interviews I did in Cyprus and in Turkey, but I still have to transcribe them, and it's a hell of a work.

In the meantime, I still monitor the web for interesting subjects. Today, I want to propose you two articles.

The first one is from OpenDemocracy, a very interesting website I discovered thanks to Nicholas Whyte:

Why the European Union strengthens Turkish secularism

Many Turkish secularists are becoming ever more critical of the European Union. They should think again, say a group of prominent intellectuals led by Hakan Altinay & Kalypso Nicolaidis: for there are seven ways in which Europe can still be an agent of Turkey's secularist progress.

Read the article.

The second story I want to show concerns Armenia's invitation to the Turkish President Abdullah Gül to watch the football match between the two countries in Yerevan:

Meanwhile, in Armenia, football

Well, and also Turkish President Abdullah Gul is coming to visit.

It’s hard to overstate how bizarre and awesome this is. But first, some context. This visit is happening because of three things: football, local politics, and war.

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Turkey at a Crossroads, as Always

From Znet:

“Turkey is always at a crossroads,” I said. “That’s what we have been reading in the newspapers in Turkey and in the West for years now. It seems it is convenient to stay at a crossroads.”

There is no choice but to take the road to EU integration, he insisted. It is the only way to bring freedom of expression, minority rights and democracy to Turkey. For Turkish-Armenians, too, it is crucial. “There are people in this country who—if given the chance—would slaughter us again,” he told me.

This was in June 2005 in Istanbul.

On Jan. 19, 2007, I woke up from a phone call from Turkey. “It is all over Turkish TV,” I was told. “They killed him.”
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was slaughtered in front of the editorial offices of his newspaper Agos. He had met one of the people who was “given the chance” and acted upon it.

Three months have passed since Dink’s murder, and—you guessed it—the country is still at a crossroads. I talked about today’s Turkey with Amberin Zaman, Turkey correspondent for The Economist.

“Even I, as a journalist, have to measure my words very very carefully, because I don’t know when some extremist will consider what I said to be ‘insulting Turkishness’ and take me to court on that,” Zaman says in this interview. “ It’s a very nefarious, poisonous atmosphere that we live in today,
and all the more so because we really can’t pinpoint where the danger is coming from. And what’s really obscene about it is that these people use Turkish law to attack intellectuals,” she adds.

Full story

French genocide bill prompts Turkey to suspend pipeline talks

From the International Herald Tribune:

ANKARA: Turkey has suspended talks with Gaz de France over a pipeline project that would bring Caspian natural gas to Europe in reaction to a French bill on the mass killings of Armenians during Ottoman rule, senior Turkish energy officials told Reuters on Thursday.

Nabucco is a 4.6-billion euro ($6.14 billion) project to transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, passing through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. The planned pipeline would reduce Europe's dependency on Russian gas.

France angered Ankara last year when its national assembly passed a bill making it a crime to deny that the mass killings of Armenians during the fall of the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide.

"We will suspend partnership by Gaz de France until the French presidential elections. We will decide according to policies to be followed after the elections," a senior energy ministry official, who declined to be named, said.

Full story

Turkish and Armenian youth are talking

A very popular online networking site called Facebook has rivaling groups such as 'Recognize the Armenian Genocide' group and 'The Armenian Genocide is a Huge Lie' group. A much smaller group exists called 'Peace for Armenia and Turkey.' But its participants skyrocketed since the murder of Hrant Dink.

Read the story on Turkish Daily News

See also:

• Mesrob II weeps at mass for Dink (Hürriyet)
• Extreme parties point finger at foreign circles for Dink murder (The New Anatolian)
• Nationalist group warns of bomb attacks (Turkish Daily News)
• Chief Prosecutor Engin: An armed organization involved in Hrant Dink's murder (Hürriyet)
• Trabzon circle of suspects widens; Ogun Samast says "I am sorry I killed him" (Hürriyet)
• Trabzon suspect: Orhan Pamuk had better wise-up! (Hürriyet)
• Top Trabzon officials suspended after Dink killing (The New Anatolian)
• The mayor and the police chief removed from the office (Sabah)
• Governor accepts suspension, police chief angered (The New Anatolian)
• Authorities charge 6th suspect in Dink killing (Turkish Daily News)
• Ankara slams Armenian proposal to open ties without preconditions (The New Anatolian)
• Gul reproves Douste-Blazy on French passage of Armenian bill (The New Anatolian)
• Ankara responds sharply to Yerevan comments (Hürriyet)
• Canada: Conservatives modify position on Turkey (rabble)
• Robert Fisk: Award-winning writer shot by assassin in Istanbul street (The Independent)
• An interesting debate about the Armenian Genocide (The Infidel)

Journalists Without Borders ranks Turkey 100th in "media freedom"

According to the Paris-based media organization "Journalists Without Borders," Turkey ranks 100th in the world in the arena of "freedom in the media." A list published yesterday by Journalists Without Borders puts Finland, Iceland, Ireland, and the Netherlands in a tie for first place in this category. Other noteable placements on the list were Armenia, which ranked immediately before Turkey at 99, and Denmark, which gained notoriety for the caricature crisis earlier in the year: Danish media ranked 20th. The US was ranked at 56th, while North Korea came in last at 168.

Full article (Hürriyet)

See also:

• A prize affair - Orhan Pamuk, the French parliament and the Armenian massacres (The Economist)
• Freedom of expression and the European Union (Zaman)
• Pamuk is not invited for the October 29 (Sabah)
• All eyes turn to observe trial of Sumerian expert in Turkey (Hürriyet)
• French Radio Halts Broadcasting in Turkish (Zaman)
• TÜSİAD invites Armenian businessmen to Istanbul (Turkish Daily News)
• Freedom of speech under continuing attack in Turkey (IndyBay)