ANKARA, 27 May 2005 — Turkey came under fire yesterday for halting a landmark conference questioning the official line on the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, as European Union diplomats warned that Ankara’s democratic credentials had taken a serious blow.
Istanbul’s prestigious Bogazici University, where the gathering was to open Wednesday, put off the event after Justice Minister Cemil Cicek accused the participants — Turkish academics and intellectuals who dispute Ankara’s version of the 1915-1917 massacres — of “treason.”
Cicek condemned the initiative as “a stab in the back of the Turkish nation” and said the organizers deserved to be prosecuted.
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 theory Turkey fiercely rejects — and Brussels has urged Ankara to face its past and expand freedom of speech.
“The remarks of the justice minister are unacceptable. This is an authoritarian approach raising questions over Turkey’s reform process,” a diplomat from an EU country told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Now it is a real watershed. We expect government action to correct Cicek’s remarks,” he said. Another EU diplomat regretted the postponement of the conference because it “would have reflected the evolution taking place in Turkish society.”
The EU expects the conference to be rescheduled, he said, adding: “The Europeans will keep on insisting that civil society has a great role to play in Turkey.”
The conference organizers said they were determined to go ahead with the event in the coming days.
