EU parliament says Turkey must recognise "genocide"
Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:21 PM BST


STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The European Parliament said on Wednesday that Turkey must recognise the killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule in 1915 as genocide before it can join the European Union.

The non-binding resolution was a political slap in the face for Ankara, which insists there was no genocide, but it should not derail the planned start of Turkey's EU membership talks next week, since accession is at least a decade away.

The EU legislature also postponed a vote, which had been due on Wednesday, to approve Turkey's extended customs union with the EU, in a bid to pressure Ankara to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member Cyprus.

Despite a plea from the executive European Commission, lawmakers backed a last-minute move by the conservative European People's Party, led by Germany's Christian Democrats, to delay giving assent to the so-called Ankara Protocol.

They demanded an undertaking that when the Turkish parliament ratifies the protocol extending the customs union to new EU member states, it would not attach a government declaration refusing to recognise Cyprus.

The European Parliament resolution endorsed the start of accession negotiations next Monday but included a series of criticisms of Turkey's record on human rights, religious freedom and minorities reflecting sceptical public opinion in Europe.

The vote followed an emotional debate in which many deputies, especially on the right, poured out their hostility to the prospect of the poor, populous, mainly Muslim nation joining the 25-nation bloc.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn appealed in vain to parliament not to score "an own goal" by refusing to approve the extended customs union.

But Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said the delay should not affect the start of entry talks.

"It is not a condition for opening accession talks with Turkey on October 3 since it was signature of the Ankara Protocol which was a condition and not ratification," she told a news briefing in Brussels.

However, she added that eventual ratification by the European Parliament was essential.

That's a good thing. :yes:

We won't recognise anything.I bet that the negotiations will begin without recognising the so-called armenian genocide and greek part of Cyprus!

That's a good thing. :yes:


Yeah, I hope they stay on it.

Turkey has always been bitchy and touchy about this. Once a swiss canton has recogniced the Genocide and Turkey suspended a meeting of the foreign ministers (the foreign minister of switzerland doesn't have any authority about the decitions of cantons).

No let the trolling begin.

Dream on guys!France of all France should recognise its genocides in Africa!What about that?

Frnace does recognise its colonial era crimes in Africa - though they do not amount to genocide.

Answer of Turkish republic:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave support to the Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul who said on Friday, “If the European Union (EU) issues new terms and makes new suggestions, Turkey will turn its back and leave”.

Erdogan compared the suggestion of a privileged partnership to changing the penalty rules during the course of a football match, “Such a nonsense cannot be accepted,” Erdogan remarked. Responding to journalists on the plane while returning from Italy, Erdogan said the EU membership is not a “sine qua non” for Turkey and Turkey’s non admission to EU will not be the end of the world.

During a conference in Italy, Erdogan said, “If the promises are not kept, then we will name the Copenhagen criteria as Ankara criteria and continue our own way”. Upon this a European journalist asked Erdogan, “Are you threatening us?” “ Of course not, we are not threatening anybody,” Erdogan responded.


When reminded about Gul’s remarks, Erdogan said, “This is not something we have just said, we have always said this. If we face a negative attitude concerning the start of negotiations on October 3 after we realized the EU criteria and took the necessary steps, then we will name the Copenhagen criteria as Ankara criteria and go on our own way. This is clear and definite.”

Indicating that Turkey’s entrance into the bloc will make many contributions to it, Erdogan said if the EU becomes aware of these contributions, then it will be unnecessary to have any controversies over the October 3 talks. Erdogan, who believed that the EU passed this phase, complained that only two or three EU members out of 25 still have some concerns. To the countries creating problems for Turkey, Erdogan told, “ If they solve their problems, it is fine. But if they cannot, then we will give our final decision. EU membership is not a sine qua non for Turkey and not the end of the world as well. “


Upon a question whether he had seen any negative attitudes concerning the start of negotiations on October 3, Erdogan replied, “I do not see a negative attitude. We will start negotiations on October 3.”

When reminded about the privileged partnership suggestion, Erdogan said, “We cannot accept such a thing.”

Erdogan emphasized that there could not be any forms of behavior in diplomatic relations not complying with diplomacy ethics as he added, “ Actually, there is no such thing as privileged partnership in the EU. You are entering a union whose rules were set before, but you change the penalty rules during the course of match. This is so nonsense. Politics has ethics and rules within it.”


“Wedding Ceremony Ends in Marriage”

Meanwhile, there were enjoyable dialogues in the second day of the Ambrosetti forum, the subject of which was EU, near Como Lake of Milano. It is reported that Austria Finance Minister Karl Heinz Grasses made evaluations about Turkey’s membership during his speech in the off press part of the conference. The Austrian Minister said:” Sometimes friendships are better than marriages,” and added that they want privileged partnership. After that Erdogan replied to the minister with a joke: “What you say is like saying to the groom ‘Lets not get married and stay as friends’ during the wedding ceremony,” and added that Turkey has been struggling for long years to enter the EU. Erdogan said: “We have spent lots of money and energy for that. Can we just forget about our 40 years of struggle? We do not want only friendship; we want this to end in marriage (membership).”

During the meeting, Erdogan said the EU was established after World War II in order to protect the peace in Europe. Under the new circumstances Turkey should be a member of the EU in order to preserve world peace and added: “Turkey’s membership to the union increases the strategic power of the EU. This will turn the ‘Clash of Civilizations” into “Accordance of Civilizations. Turkey’s EU membership will serve a high added value to EU.”

Former Spanish Foreign Minister Ana Palacio supported Erdogan and said: “If Turkey’s full membership goal is abolished, its attempts for the membership will be fruitless and Turkey will lose its motivation.” Former Italian Prime Minister and EU Commission Director Romano Prodi added: “The friendships turn into marriages after a while

It's only reasonable that Turkey should finally recognise this instead of always making excuses.

Heh...This shows how pathetic EU is. How outrageous.Non trustable. First of all countries who have colonies in EU should recognize their genocides like France in Rwanda, and other countries in Africa.....There are more countries..

@earthJoker

watch your language about Turkey....bitchy and touchy heh...shame on you...

@Leafs FaNATIC

not surprising that you started this thread....about Turkey and negative right?????????

Armenians are not innocent...They started rebellion and tried to divide their own country by attacking innocent Turkish villagers...They started killing and raping many women,children....Why do the world ignores it?...Look at how Armenians genocide Turks..then talk.....Turks didnt genocide Armenians it is a total lie...

Take your precious EU..keep with you...None of the candidates faced with stupid demands before..Look at the new candidates unemployement rate, inflation, human trade goes on in other candidates....EU have always lies and they are hostile against Turks

Heh...This shows how pathetic EU is. How outrageous.Non trustable. First of all countries who have colonies in EU should recognize their genocides like France in Rwanda, and other countries in Africa.....There are more countries..

@earthJoker

watch your language about Turkey....bitchy and touchy heh...shame on you...

@Leafs FaNATIC

not surprising that you started this thread....about Turkey and negative right?????????

Armenians are not innocent...They started rebellion and tried to divide their own country by attacking innocent Turkish villagers...They started killing and raping many women,children....Why do the world ignores it?...Look at how Armenians genocide Turks..then talk.....Turks didnt genocide Armenians it is a total lie...

Take your precious EU..keep with you.......They have always lies and they are hostile against Turks


I only post worthy news stories from reputable sources, i.e., Reuters, BBC, International Herald Tribune, etc.

This is a big development in Turkey's progress to EU membership. How you react to it is your business. However, I do suggest you start to accept the history of your country, both good aspects and bad, instead of denying what hitorians all over the world, and Turkey, have proven and accepted as fact.

There is nothing wrong in admitting your mistakes. All countries/people have made mistakes in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Accepting your mistakes is the path to ensuring that you never make the same mistakes again.

Cheers :cheers:

Heh...This shows how pathetic EU is. How outrageous.Non trustable. First of all countries who have colonies in EU should recognize their genocides like France in Rwanda, and other countries in Africa.....There are more countries.Rwanda was never a French colony. France did support the Hutu regime before the recent genocide but they were shocked when it took place (immediately withdrawing their support) and both France's people and political establishment are ashamed about at their connection. France would never have supported the Hutus if they had known the end result.

@ Leafs Pathetic: Your diaspora reflexes are out of control again, pull yourself together!

How is this this "huge news" when it's not even a condition for the start of negotiations and they will probably go ahead anyway? You would do just about anything to get the pleasure of bashing Turkey, wouldn't you?

We are not recognizing a lie and it is very stupid that EU puts it as mandatory in the last minute....This shows Hostility....Look at Greece do they recognize Macedonian genocide?No..because they think it is not true...Does France recognize Rwanda genocide?No..because they think it is not true...So why do they ignore those?

Monkey who said Rwanda was a colony.It was a country invaded by France..France ignores Rwandas demand...But no one says anything to France right?Because it is very biiiig EU country.

We are not recognizing a lie and it is very stupid that EU puts it as mandatory in the last minute....This shows Hostility....Look at Greece do they recognize Macedonian genocide?No..because they think it is not true...Does France recognize Rwanda genocide?No..because they think it is not true...So why do they ignore those?Rwanda was never a French colony. France did support the Hutu regime before the recent genocide but they were shocked when it took place (immediately withdrawing their support) and both France's people and political establishment are ashamed about at their connection. France would never have supported the Hutus if they had known the end result. The only people ignoring their genocide (which unlike France in Rwanda was both direct and intentional) are the Turks. Nothing makes Turkey seem more Third World and less suited to jioin a democratic club like the EU than this. I strongly support Turkey's bid to join the EU buit on this issue Turkey is absolutely despicable.

Tell me why the most of the Africa talks France..Colonize them,use them and keep them unhealthy and unwealthy then they cannot raise their voice right????


Who cares your precious EU...Take it and keep it...We dont need it

Does France recognize Rwanda genocide?No..because they think it is not true...So why do they ignore those?

Monkey who said Rwanda was a colony.It was a country invaded by France..France ignores Rwandas demand...But no one says anything to France right?Because it is very biiiig EU country.Rubbish. France never invaded Rwanda. France never committed genocide in Rwanda. Show me evidence of these accusations or shut up.

Facts are rubbish...Go and search Rwanda news.

Tell me why the most of the Africa talks France..Colonize them,use them and keep them unhealthy and unwealthy then they cannot raise their voice right????More Africans speak English than French. Rwanda was a Belgian colony - not French. The genocides took place long after the Belgians had left. Get your facts straight and stop talking out of your rear end.

Watch your language

Tell me why the most of the Africa talks France..Colonize them,use them and keep them unhealthy and unwealthy then they cannot raise their voice right????


Why the hell do you try to justify one genocide with another?

It is like saying, "you raped my girlfriend, so now I am justified in raping yours"

Just accept your history, hope it never ahppens again, and move on.

US has accepted slavery
Britain/Spain/Portugal has acknowledged the killings of aboroginals
Turkey-now its your turn

Facts are rubbish...Go and search Rwanda news.Rwanda was never a French colony (it was Belgian). France never invaded Rwanda. France never committed genocide in Rwanda. Show me evidence of these accusations or shut up.

Turkey will not join the EU anyway.

We are not recognizing a lie....

If these were true..There wouldnt be a country named Armenia..The Armenian origined Turks are wealthy in Turkey.Most of them live in Istanbul and they are in jewelerry business...An Armenian woman who was very wealthy was the biggest tax payer.

The Armenian genocide is internationally recognised as fact and thankfully many in Turkish academia are now saying this too (despite the Turkish judiciary trying to silence them), icy you should just accept that your ancestors did this terrible thing, apologise and move on.

Bosverin pustlari ya!TR ne ermeni soykirmini ne de kibrisi tanimadan AB ile 3 ekimde görüsmelere baslayacak deyin,sinirlendirin pustlari.Bunlara burada tarih dersi mi verecez.Iki üc BBC'de bisiy okuyorlar kendileri cok bilmis saniyorlar.Biz hic birsey tanimadan görüsmelere basliyacagiz deyin kesin atin,sinir oluyorlar.3 ekim gelince de bir baslik acar "görüdnüz mü görüsmeler nasil basladi am" diye bir baslik acariz :D

More bad news for Turkey's Human Rights Record and its effect on their chances to enter the EU:

Abuse of mentally ill is reported in Turkey
By Craig S. Smith The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005

PARIS Turkey's psychiatric hospitals are riddled with horrific abuses, including the use of raw electroshock as a form of punishment, according to a human rights report scheduled for release in Istanbul on Wednesday, just days before Turkey begins formal talks to join the European Union.

The report, by Mental Disability Rights International, an advocacy group based in Washington, is likely to complicate the EU talks because many European officials are already wary of letting Turkey join the Union and will use any evidence that the country falls short of European standards to argue against its membership.

But the authors of the report hope that the pressure will bring a quick end to the worst abuses.

"We realized Turkey was a great opportunity for using that process to have some influence," said Eric Rosenthal, Mental Disability Rights International's founder, speaking by telephone from Istanbul. His organization has fought for more than a decade to improve mental health facilities around the world and has already used EU accession pressures to bring change in Eastern Europe.

Turkey has made great strides in developing its society and economy to meet European standards in recent years. After waiting for decades, formal talks on its membership are scheduled to begin Oct. 3. But as with many developing countries, some sectors of its society lag far behind the rest, including its mental health system.

Of all the abuses witnessed by Rosenthal and his investigators, none was more disturbing than the use of electroconvulsive therapy, also known as ECT, without anesthesia to treat a wide range of illnesses in both adults and children. The World Health Organization has called for a ban on "unmodified" or "direct" ECT and states that children should never be subjected to the treatment in any form.

The therapy, in which an electrical current is passed through the brain, was developed in the 1930s and continues to be used in mainstream psychiatry to treat a limited number of ills. But it is normally administered with anesthesia and muscle relaxants. Without them, it can be painful, terrifying and dangerous. Patients can suffer broken jaws or cracked vertebrae during the artificially induced seizures.

The report quotes a 28-year-old electroshock patient at the Bakirkoy Psychiatric Hospital as saying, "I felt like dying."

The human rights group found that unmodified electroconvulsive therapy is used on nearly a third of all patients undergoing a psychiatric crisis at the state-run hospitals, including children as young as 9. The treatment is also given for many illnesses that are not on the short list considered appropriate by the international psychiatric community.

The report describes patients being dragged to electroshock therapy in straitjackets and forcibly held down by staff during the procedure. Others, it said, are told they are simply going to be X-rayed.

Turkey has been criticized for using unmodified electroconvulsive therapy before: in 1997, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture called on the country to stop the practice. Turkey's Ministry of Health promised to do so. It opened a new electroconvulsive therapy center at Bakirkoy and said the treatment would be restricted to those illnesses for which it is internationally accepted.

But Rosenthal and his investigators found that unmodified ECT continues to be administered at Bakirkoy and other psychiatric hospitals for a wide range of problems, including even postpartum depression, in part as a punishment.

"If we use anesthesia the ECT won't be as effective because they won't feel punished," the report quotes the ECT center's director as saying.

"That was one of most horrifying statements I've ever heard in 12 years of doing this work," Rosenthal said.

When Rosenthal and his staff visited the center one day in April, 24 people received unmodified electroconvulsive treatment. Technicians at the center told the group that only patients who had broken bones, presumably from previous ECT sessions, were given anesthesia.

The Turkish Ministry of Health, which is responsible for the country's psychiatric hospitals, said it had not yet read the report and declined to comment on specific practices at its institutions.

Richard Howitt, a British member of the European Parliament, said, "There's no question that what's described in the report counts as torture under the European convention and shouldn't exist in Turkey or anywhere in Europe."

Howitt said he would bring up the report as part of the accession negotiations.

"It is certainly part of the Copenhagen criteria on whether Turkey is eligible to accede," he said.

The report, which includes testimonies from former patients and videos taken inside some institutions, reveals other abuse that is likely to complicate the country's efforts to convince Europe that it has met standards equal to those of the rest of the Union.

Much of the abuse took place in orphanages and rehabilitation centers for children with developmental or intellectual disabilities where investigators saw emaciated and neglected children, many of whom exhibited behavioral problems that were probably the result of their mistreatment rather than any pre-existing illness, Rosenthal said.

The group's investigators visited three institutions under the Directorate for Social Services and Child Protection, which administers the orphanages and rehabilitation centers.

The Saray Rehabilitation Center, near the airport outside Ankara, was one of the most terrible.

"We saw children who were essentially abandoned, starving, tied down to their beds," Rosenthal said.

Photographs and videos taken at Saray, the largest of Turkey's state-run rehabilitation centers, show skeletal children, some with plastic water bottles taped over their hands to prevent them from biting their fingers. Other children with only minor disabilities are mixed in with the rest.

Rosenthal said the Saray's director would not provide mortality figures for the facility, but a footnote in the report notes that the large number of admissions without a corresponding number of outplacements suggests that many of the children die.

"We believe there's a very high death rate in these facilities," Rosenthal said.

Officials at the Directorate for Social Services and Child Protection could not be reached.

The report found that there were no enforceable laws in Turkey to protect mentally ill people from arbitrary detention or forced treatment and that there are virtually no community services that might keep them out of institutions.

As a result, according to the report, thousands of people are institutionalized for life.

But Rosenthal said he was optimistic that Turkey could change, noting that the country had a better government, more highly trained professionals and more money than many other places he had worked.

"The most extreme abuses are problems they can remedy very quickly," Rosenthal said.

"There's no need for this to stand in the way of accession," he added.

We are not recognizing a lie....

If these were true..There wouldnt be a country named Armenia..The Armenian origined Turks are wealthy in Turkey.Most of them live in Istanbul and they are in jewelerry business...An Armenian woman who was very wealthy was the biggest tax payer.

:? So? This is like saying that if the holocaust was real there would be no country called Israel, stupidity :ohno:

Israel and Germany are pretty far....

What difference does the geography make?

So why dont your countries officially say no and still play with us?

WoW! Now from the Washington Times!!!

What is going on here?



'No' to Islamist Turkey


By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
September 27, 2005
The Washington Times


On Oct. 3, representatives of the European Union and the Turkish government of Islamist Recep Erdogan will meet to determine if Muslim Turkey will be allowed to seek full membership in the EU. It will be best for Turkey, to say nothing of Europe and the West more generally, if the EU answer under present circumstances is: "Thanks, but no thanks."

The reason Europe should politely, but firmly, reject Turkey's bid should be clear: Prime Minister Erdogan is systematically turning his country from a Muslim secular democracy into an Islamofascist state governed by an ideology anathema to European values and freedoms.

Evidence of such an ominous transformation is not hard to find.

• Turkey is awash with billions of dollars in what is known as "green money," apparently emanating from funds Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states withdrew from the United States after September 11, 2001. U.S. policymakers are concerned this unaccountable cash is laundered in Turkey, then used to finance businesses and generate new revenue streams for Islamofascist terrorism. At the very least, everything else on Mr. Erdogan's Islamist agenda is lubricated by these resources.

• Turkey's traditionally secular educational system is being steadily supplanted by madrassa-style "imam hatip" schools and other institutions where students are taught only the Koran and its interpretation according to the Islamofascists. The prime minister is himself an imam hatip school graduate and has championed lowering the age at which children can be subjected to their form of radical religious indoctrination from 12 years old to 4. And in 2005, experts expect 1,215,000 Turkish students to graduate from such schools.

• Products of such an education are ill-equipped to do much besides carrying out the Islamist program of Mr. Erdogan's AKP Party. Tens of thousands are being given government jobs: Experienced, secular bureaucrats are replaced with ideologically reliable theo-apparatchiks; 4,000 others pack secular courts, transforming them into instruments of Shari'a religious law.

• As elsewhere, religious intolerance is a hallmark of Mr. Erdogan's creeping Islamofascist putsch in Turkey. Roughly a third of the Turkish population is a minority known as Alevis. They observe a strain of Islam that retains some of the traditions of Turkey's ancient religions. Islamist Sunnis like Mr. Erdogan and his Saudi Wahhabi sponsors regard the Alevis as "apostates" and "hypocrites" and subject them to increasing discrimination and intimidation. Other minorities, notably Turkey's Jews, know they are likely next in line for such treatment -- a far cry from the tolerance of the Ottoman era.

• In the name of internationally mandated "reform" of Turkey's banking system, the government is seizing assets and operations of banks run by businessmen associated with the political opposition. It has gone so far as to defy successive rulings by Turkey's supreme court disallowing one such expropriation. The AKP-dominated parliament has enacted legislation that allows even distant relatives of the owners to be prosecuted for alleged wrongdoing. Among the beneficiaries of such shakedowns have been so-called "Islamic banks" tied to Saudi Arabia, some of whose senior officers now hold top jobs in the Erdogan government.

• Grabbing assets -- or threatening to do so -- has allowed the government effectively to take control of the Turkish media, as well. Consolidation of the industry in hands friendly to (or at least cowed by) the Islamists and self-censorship of reporters, lest they depart from the party line, have essentially denied prominent outlets to any contrary views. The risks of deviating is clear from the recently announced prosecution of Turkey's most acclaimed novelist, Orhan Parmuk, for "denigrating Turks and Turkey" by affirming in a Swiss publication allegations of past Turkish genocidal attacks on Kurds and Armenians.

• Among the consequences of Mr. Erdogan's domination of the press has been an inflaming of Turkish public opinion against President Bush in particular and the United States more generally. Today, a novel describing a war between America and Turkey leading to the nuclear destruction of Washington is a runaway best-seller, even in the Turkish military.

• This data point perhaps indicates the Islamists' progress toward also transforming the traditional guarantors of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's legacy of a secular, pro-Western Muslim state: Turkey's armed forces. Matters have been worsened by Mr. Erdogan's skillful manipulation of popular interest in the European bid to keep the military from serving as a control rod in Turkish politics.

At the very least, over time, the cumulative effect of having the conscript-based Turkish army obliged to fill its ranks with products of an increasingly Islamist-dominated educational system cannot be positive for either the Europeans or the Free World beyond. Especially as Mr. Erdogan seeks to put into effect what has been dubbed a "zero-problem" policy toward neighboring Iran and Syria, the military's historical check on the gravitational pull toward Islamofascism is likely to recede.

Consequently, the EU's representatives should not only put on ice any invitation to Turkey to join the European Union next week. They should make it clear the reason is Mr. Erdogan's Islamist takeover: The prime minister is making Turkey ineligible for membership on the grounds that the AKP program will inevitably ruin his nation's economy, radicalize its society and eliminate Ankara's ability to play Turkey's past, constructive role in the geographic "cockpit of history."

It is to be hoped this meeting will serve one other purpose, as well: It should compel the Europeans to begin to address their own burgeoning problem with Islamofascism. Both Europe, Turkey and, for that matter, the rest of the world, need to find ways to empower moderate Muslims who oppose Islamists like Turkey's Erdogan. Oct. 3 would be a good time to start.

So why dont your countries officially say no and still play with us?

Because all we want is an apology for your actions and then we can play, why is this too much to ask?

Who is goint to bet? I say the negotiations will begin 6 days ;) I'll give you my bank account!! $$$

Leafy you're very active today don't you have more "bad" news for Turkey.Come on I'm sure you'll find more if you search on the internet!!

Turkey: Will Accept Nothing Less Than Full EU Membership

ANKARA (AP)--Turkey said Wednesday that any deviation from full E.U. membership would be unacceptable, a sharp reaction to conservative E.U. lawmakers who have been pressing the bloc to offer Muslim Turkey a privileged partnership instead of full entry into the group.

"A deviation from the goal of full membership negotiations cannot be accepted under any condition," Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said.

Turkey is scheduled to open accession talks with the E.U. Monday

Uuuhhh!!

Yes we will get in EU and travel and move to all EU countries :D:D:D:D...We will live in your homes...:D:D:D:D:D

So why dont your countries officially say no and still play with us?I want Turkey to join. I love Turkey and I think Turkey could play a valuable role in Europe's future. However I dispair at Turkey's failure to meet an acceptable standard on human rights. Every European country accepts and educates its own people about its past crimes. Turkey has a nationalist collective denial over the Armenian Genocide which just seems so Third World. It doesn't matter how many modern shopping malls you post photos of in this forum to convince us of your modernity if we know that in your heads you are still at the stage of immature Third World nationalism. We cannot work with that mentality. It's completely backward and contrary to our political culture.

Turkey: Will Accept Nothing Less Than Full EU Membership

ANKARA (AP)--Turkey said Wednesday that any deviation from full E.U. membership would be unacceptable, a sharp reaction to conservative E.U. lawmakers who have been pressing the bloc to offer Muslim Turkey a privileged partnership instead of full entry into the group.

"A deviation from the goal of full membership negotiations cannot be accepted under any condition," Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said.

Turkey is scheduled to open accession talks with the E.U. Monday

Uuuhhh!!Yes full membership - fine by me - but an acceptance of past historical crimes ought to be a mandatory condition of entry. We cannot work with countries with an immature Third World nationalism. If you guys cannot accept this part of your history then I for one will defintiely oppose Turkey - just too politically backward to work with in a club that prioritises democracy and human rights.

Monkey what if there wasn't really any genocide?There are also many original documents which show that there has never been an organized genocide.
Many armenians died also turks that's true but it was more a civil war.

Monkey what if there wasn't really any genocide?There are also many original documents which show that there has never been an organized genocide.
Many armenians died also turks that's true but it was more a civil war.

Nobody outside Turkey believes this and many Turkish academics don't believe it either, it is only the government and the people that believe it because it suits what they want to think.

Monkey what if there wasn't really any genocide?There are also many original documents which show that there has never been an organized genocide.
Many armenians died also turks that's true but it was more a civil war.


Have you ever wondered if that is what they have taught you to believe? It's called nationalistic propaganda.

Could you show me these acamedics that recognise the genocide?

Third world ha?

renowned researcher on the Genocide has asked the Rwandan government to sue France over its role in the 1994 Genocide. Dr. Christian P. Scherrer, a Professor at Hiroshima City University, (Hiroshima Peace Institute) in Japan, insists France masterminded the Genocide and should be tried, particularly at ICC or at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

His plea comes after France continuously refused to step down, plead guilty and ask for forgiveness to the Rwandan government. Scherrer is also a peace researcher on long term conflicts like that of the Sudan, Rwanda and Ethiopia. He is currently helping the Rwandan government to research on Genocide. "The then Rwandan army was not so tactical and was not quite strong to carry out the Genocide. From 1990 in October to 1994, French soldiers were training several Rwandan special forces, even the militias were trained. If you go to Gisozi, a Genocide museum, there is a picture of the French forces training the Interahamwe and I think this is something symbolic (of the role France played in the Genocide)," Dr. Scherrer remarked

http://allafrica.com/stories/200509190254.html

Could you show me these acamedics that recognise the genocide?

Taner Akçam for one.

Have you ever wondered if that is what they have taught you to believe? It's called nationalistic propaganda.

Did you think about Macedonia? or Albania?are they nationalistic propaganda too??

Did you think about Macedonia? or Albania?are they nationalistic propaganda too??


Yes, Macedonia is a northern province of Greece, birthplace of much of our history including Alexander the Great.

Albania is a country to the north-west of Greece which I personally believe will experience great growth and economic prosperity in the future.

What is your point?

This reminds me of how a particular country doesn't wish to recognize genocide of Ukrainians in 1932-33

Anyway, I'm glad that EU Parliament is taking a firm stand on this. This would mean a lot to the Armeanis ( those few that are alive today ).

icy ve messiah lutfen ulkenizi seviyorsaniz bu tartismaya katilmayin. verdiginiz imaj cok kotu.

Yes, Macedonia is a northern province of Greece, birthplace of much of our history including Alexander the Great.

Albania is a country to the north-west of Greece which I personally believe will experience great growth and economic prosperity in the future.

What is your point?

You see...You dont recognize Macedonia..We are not talking about your part of country here..We are talking about Macedonia who you only can call FYROM.

Rwanda was never a French colony. France did support the Hutu regime before the recent genocide but they were shocked when it took place (immediately withdrawing their support) and both France's people and political establishment are ashamed about at their connection. France would never have supported the Hutus if they had known the end result. The only people ignoring their genocide (which unlike France in Rwanda was both direct and intentional) are the Turks. Nothing makes Turkey seem more Third World and less suited to jioin a democratic club like the EU than this. I strongly support Turkey's bid to join the EU buit on this issue Turkey is absolutely despicable.


False, France never stoped to back up the Hutu power regime, Mitterand even said at that time that in africa, a genocide was not something very important, even during the so-called humanitary mission the "operation turquoise", what the army really did was take the Hutu leaders back to where they could be safe, if you don't believe me, go and do some researches on Patrick de saint exupery's work (a "le Figaro" journalist), or Jean Carbonate's, and they are not the only ones who proved that Mitterand was backing up the Hutus while perfectly knowing the situation.

And who knows, maybe some western country is suporting the militias in Soudan right know, while nobody knows anything about it (and nobody really gives a shit)

The EU legislature also postponed a vote, which had been due on Wednesday, to approve Turkey's extended customs union with the EU, in a bid to pressure Ankara to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member Cyprus.

Despite a plea from the executive European Commission, lawmakers backed a last-minute move by the conservative European People's Party, led by Germany's Christian Democrats, to delay giving assent to the so-called Ankara Protocol.

They demanded an undertaking that when the Turkish parliament ratifies the protocol extending the customs union to new EU member states, it would not attach a government declaration refusing to recognise Cyprus.

There is alot of talk about human rights abuses, yet no one has spoken about Cyprus. How on earth will Turkey enter the European Union if it can't even accept that an EU-Member exists?!

You see...You dont recognize Macedonia..We are not talking about your part of country here..We are talking about Macedonia who you only can call FYROM.


That has nothing to do with propaganda. What would Turkey do if a neighboring country took a name of a bordering Turkish region or province, moulded their history to make it seem that important turkish figures were in fact their own, and had expansionist propaganda teachings against Turkey in their school system?

You think turkey would sit back and do nothing?

That has nothing to do with propaganda. What would Turkey do if a neighboring country took a name of a bordering Turkish region or province, moulded their history to make it seem that important turkish figures were in fact their own, and had expansionist propaganda teachings against Turkey in their school system?

You think turkey would sit back and do nothing?

Kurds draw their own maps of Kurdistan beat turkish people with turkish flags,destroy houses of turks with turkish flags we don't do anything!! Why?

Kurds draw their own maps of Kurdistan beat turkish people with turkish flags,destroy houses of turks with turkish flags we don't do anything!! Why?


Totally different situation my friend.

Kurds WITHIN Turkey have been suppressed for many years and then began to revolt.

Arkadaşlar OYUNA GELİYORSUNUZ. Cevap yazmayın.

Kurds WITHIN Turkey have been suppressed for many years and then began to revolt.


What?? You must be lying, never would the TURK oppress ;)

Welcome to my ignore list again Leafy boy... You will never change...

To the rest of the Turkish forumers, why respond to a bullshit thread started by a funny boy?

Watch your language
You should better watch yourself about your wrong accusions.

Messiah abi biraz aklinizi kullanip su oyunlara gelmeseniz, herif icindeki kini kusmak için sizleri kullanıyor. Aman ne güzel kullandırıyorsunuz kendinizi... laflarım aynen sana da Icy... Bravo... Siz daha cevap yazın ki bu konu lastik gibi uzasın kompleksli yunan piçi de kinini kussun... devam...

sana katiliyorum istanbullu

Hiç ders almayacaksınız siz ya! Kınıyorum arkadaşlar! Şu bit dallamasının yaptığı sinirlendirmiyor ama bu oyuna gelmenize inanamıyorum! 5 yaşında bebeler gelmez artık! Ama siz yazın daha belki ikna edersiniz ceviz beyinliyi... Hadi devam... Gerçekten bravo...

Cevap yazmicam yazmicam diyorum ama o anda insan yaziyor iste,sonra zaman gecince "niye yazdum" diyor.Bu DLM'deki anti-tr basligindaki son mesajimdi.söz :)

Dream on guys!France of all France should recognise its genocides in Africa!What about that?

We reconized it and even apologized. I'm french and I have no problem with that. We were wrong and we know it today.

Third world ha?

renowned researcher on the Genocide has asked the Rwandan government to sue France over its role in the 1994 Genocide. Dr. Christian P. Scherrer, a Professor at Hiroshima City University, (Hiroshima Peace Institute) in Japan, insists France masterminded the Genocide and should be tried, particularly at ICC or at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

His plea comes after France continuously refused to step down, plead guilty and ask for forgiveness to the Rwandan government. Scherrer is also a peace researcher on long term conflicts like that of the Sudan, Rwanda and Ethiopia. He is currently helping the Rwandan government to research on Genocide. "The then Rwandan army was not so tactical and was not quite strong to carry out the Genocide. From 1990 in October to 1994, French soldiers were training several Rwandan special forces, even the militias were trained. If you go to Gisozi, a Genocide museum, there is a picture of the French forces training the Interahamwe and I think this is something symbolic (of the role France played in the Genocide)," Dr. Scherrer remarked

http://allafrica.com/stories/200509190254.htmlSo there you go - the French forces never perpetrated the genocide. They did train and supply the Interhamwe and for that they accept responsibility - but they never committed any genocde themselves and did not realise that their Hutu allies were about to either. As soon as the killing started did the French stopped supporting them and serious questions were asked in French political and media circles as to how they could have found themselves supporting a Hutu revolution bent on genocide. By contrast the Turks commited the genocide themselves, directly, and now deny that it happened. That is the difference....

We reconized it and even apologized. I'm french and I have no problem with that. We were wrong and we know it today.There you go Ning. I don't oppose you on everything. ;)

False, France never stoped to back up the Hutu power regime, Mitterand even said at that time that in africa, a genocide was not something very important, even during the so-called humanitary mission the "operation turquoise", what the army really did was take the Hutu leaders back to where they could be safe, if you don't believe me, go and do some researches on Patrick de saint exupery's work (a "le Figaro" journalist), or Jean Carbonate's, and they are not the only ones who proved that Mitterand was backing up the Hutus while perfectly knowing the situation.

And who knows, maybe some western country is suporting the militias in Soudan right know, while nobody knows anything about it (and nobody really gives a shit)Be that as it may the general concensus in France is that France make a grave error in Rwanda. Icy here is accusing France of actually perpetrating the genocide itself which is nothing but ridiculous.

There you go Ning. I don't oppose you on everything. ;)

you're a nice boy sometimes. :weirdo:

all countrys have to recognise genocides to enter in EU? :? its a long list you no!!

Welcome to my ignore list again Leafy boy... You will never change...

To the rest of the Turkish forumers, why respond to a bullshit thread started by a funny boy?

Look, man, did insult you as a person, your integrity, your character or anything else personal?

Why do I become an enemy to you simply because I post news about the biggest story in europe right now? There are articles every day about this topic. If I was a prick I would post them every day but I don't and you know that. This story, though, and the subsequent stories around the world, are important. I have the right to post them and as can be seen, it has sparked some good debate.

Had I attacked you personally, then I would understand your anger. Posting what the rest of the democratic world is talking about today is not wrong.

Ignore me and call me funny, I do not care. The only ones who look funny are those that get so defensive over an issue that is so widely accepted around the world.

all countrys have to recognise genocides to enter in EU? :? its a long list you no!!

yes, and abolish death penalty too.

that is more important in fact but genocides, o dont made one?

I believe that these conditions from the EU Parliament are ridicolous and unfair towards the Turks.

Turkey has been waiting for decades, has been changing and modernising according to the accession rules, rules that have been set already. You cannot just change the goal post 5 days before the start of accession talks.

If the EU had a problem with the Armenian massacre (and personally I think it should have a problem) this should have made clear years ago.

Now it is just a pathetic attept to add even more hurdles so that the Turks lose their patience and eventually leave so that the EU can say: "see, they weren't ready" and avoid to deal with the outcome of a successful turkish bid (i.e. granting full membership).

We all know this, let's not pretend it is all about the poor Armenians.

that is more important in fact but genocides, o dont made one?
If you don't agree on past mistakes about human rights in the past, what does that say about the agreement on human rights in the future?

To admin your mistake is the first step to a better behavior next time.

You don't easily admit your mistake if you're forced to and if you're under heavy pressure.

Be that as it may the general concensus in France is that France make a grave error in Rwanda. Icy here is accusing France of actually perpetrating the genocide itself which is nothing but ridiculous.


France didn't go there and kill those tutsis at all, but suported the hutus while they where comitting the genocide, and they had been warned about what was begining to hapen in Rwanda but continued to back them up, twist this the way you like, the result is that without french support the Hutu power regime could never have comited what it did simply because they wouldn't have had the means to do so.

You don't easily admit your mistake if you're forced to and if you're under heavy pressure.
No-one is forced to join the EU.

That's not the point : the debate is vaster. I think we'll only frustrate Turkey and encourage revisionism if we act so rudely. The Turkish society has to embrace this problem but it's not our role to accelerate the memory process.

NB : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Death_Penalty_World_Map.png

What about Latvia ?

yup correct but when a country enter in EU they automatically accept all conditions, including not make genocides, my point is, thys condition it was onli made to Turkey or it was made to the athor 25 members?

about damn time.

:applause:

We reconized it and even apologized. I'm french and I have no problem with that. We were wrong and we know it today.
Did France recognize it as a "genocide", the exact term? I don't think so..

NB : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Death_Penalty_World_Map.png

What about Latvia ?

only in time of war :dunno:

Did France recognize it as a "genocide", the exact term? I don't think so..

France wasn't the direct actor of the genocide.

^ And the term genocide is widely accepted in France and everywhere in Europe. That's exactly what the Hutu militia (but not the French) did in Rawanda.

France wasn't the direct actor of the genocide.
But you said France did recognize it and apologized for it.

You said this to messiah on the previous page:

We reconized it and even apologized. I'm french and I have no problem with that. We were wrong and we know it today.

^ France recognises and apologises for supplying the Hutus with arms. That is quite different from Frenchmen going out there with machetes and doing the killings themselves. The French never committed the genocide in Rwanda - it was France's Hutu allies that committed the genocide. France was greatly embarrassed and apologised for the connection.

No one should suggest that France had a direct role in the genocide because it didn't. You Turks really need to get your basic facts straight here.

No one should suggest that France had a direct role in the genocide because it didn't. You Turks really need to get your basic facts straight here.
Pardon me, I'm not even talking about Rwanda and certainly not accusing anyone.. I was referring to messiah's question about "Africa" and Ning's subsequent answer, please read on the previous page..

I admit that history is not my strongest point, but what about other attrocities France has committed in Algeria etc..?

Also the French supplied the Hutu dominated government (though that is bad enough....) not the Interhamwe militia who actually carried out the slaughter. In any case the Interhamwe used very low tech machettes to do the the killing - not high-tech French military gear.

Pardon me, I'm not even talking about Rwanda and certainly not accusing anyone!

I admit that history is not my strongest point, but what about other attrocities France has committed in Algeria etc..?1) France's atrocities are widely accepted and publicised in France. There is no cover up.

2) They were not on the scale of genocide.


In Turkey's case there is a collective denial that the genocide even took place! That is the difference!!

^^Scale? Genocide has nothing to do with scale..

So you are suggesting that if France kills innocent people it's not "genocide" but if Turkey does it is?

Some very interesting articles..

Professor Justin McCarthy.. (a reputable historian)
http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/anatolia1915.html

http://www.armenianreality.com/armenian_terror/mccarthy.htm

^^Scale? Genocide has nothing to do with scale..

So you are suggesting that if France kills innocent people it's not "genocide" but if Turkey does it is?

France apologized for all the killings made in Africa for a long time, wether it was genocide or not. This dark past is written in any french history book just like the holocost during WWII is written in any german book.

We still have an ambiguous African policy though ...

1) France's atrocities are widely accepted and publicised in France. There is no cover up.

2) They were not on the scale of genocide.


In Turkey's case there is a collective denial that the genocide even took place! That is the difference!!
Monkey since you're an expert on Turkey and war on 1915,what do you call
thousands of Turks who have been killed by Armenians?

An Accident?


Please also see following website "the other side of the story" to add to your expertise..
http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/index.html


Camaway,also thank you for seeing the real picture..

France apologized for all the killings made in Africa for a long time, wether it was genocide or not.
"Killings" and "genocide" are different things. France didn't accept a genocide.

Genocide is the systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status or other particularity.

http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/index.html

This is a Turkish site.. you can't convince people by giving a Turkish site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide

This is a Turkish site.. you can't convince people by giving a Turkish site.
I don't need to convince anyone,eveyone has their own brain to judge but also every story has two sides needs to be seen to judge fairly!

We must not give lessons : sooner or later, a great aggiornamento will occur in Turkey. Our attitude can only delay this day.

What France as done in Africa is unforgivable. But was it a genocide? There was no politic of mass extermination unlike what the Turkish parliament tried to present in its bill (diging up an old link).

http://www.hri.org/news/turkey/trkpr/2001/01-01-24.trkpr.html#13

1. Leafs Fanatic: you starting this thread is fine (yet I question your motives), the subsequent articles you posted are not. they are off topic and only meant to incite the Turkish forumers.

2. The language in the DLM is English. I have warned various Turkish forumers only to post in English in the DLM. Next offence will result in an immediate brig.
English!!!

Come on, the debate is about Turkey, not France ! Do not try to deviate it..

^^Scale? Genocide has nothing to do with scale..

So you are suggesting that if France kills innocent people it's not "genocide" but if Turkey does it is?Of course it has something to do with scale. If you kill one or two people it's not called genocide. Genocide has to be systematic attempt to wipe out an entire people from a given area.

Come on, the debate is about Turkey, not France ! Do not try to deviate it..As usual they are trying to make out that the West is being hypocritical but it's not. There is a clear difference between the Turkish and French confrontation of history.

"Killings" and "genocide" are different things. France didn't accept a genocide.

Genocide is the systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status or other particularity.France doesn't admit genocide because France never attempted genocide in Africa. If you want to accuse the French of genocide then specify where - where was this this genocide and which people were the French attempting to wipe out?

What about the 300 000 people that France slauughtered in Madagascar in the sixities, I never saw that in my history books, neither did I read any mentions to the slaughters in Cameroun.

And didn't the french parliement recently wanted to pass a law saying that it recognised the positive action that France had done in the colonies? While not even recognising most of the slaughters etc...

Monkey since you're an expert on Turkey and war on 1915,what do you call thousands of Turks who have been killed by Armenians?

An Accident?

Please also see following website "the other side of the story" to add to your expertise..
http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/index.html

Camaway,also thank you for seeing the real picture..Armenians had already suffered large scale killings in the late 19th century. Turkish intellectuals estimate 800,000 to 1 million killed in the 1915 period:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

"There are a number of Turkish intellectuals who support theses of genocide, including Ragip Zarakolu and Ali Ertem, as well as Taner Akçam and Halil Berktay, despite being protested strongly by some Turkish nationalists. Orhan Pamuk, a famous Turkish novelist, has also recently told the Swiss press that he believes that one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey."

What about the 300 000 people that France slauughtered in Madagascar in the sixities, I never saw that in my history books, neither did I read any mentions to the slaughters in Cameroun.

And didn't the french parliement recently wanted to pass a law saying that it recognised the positive action that France had done in the colonies? While not even recognising most of the slaughters etc...France did do positive things in the colonies such as founding cities, ports, building roads, railways, setting up systems of law and order. Missionary activity, though we tend to view it as cultural imperialism today, was nonetheless benevolent. The Missionaries went through great personal hardship and danger to bring what they was the light of Christianity to the dark places in the world.

I have never read about 300,000 people slaughtered in Madagascar by the French. I also don't know about massacres in Cameroon. Please link me to sources to support these arguments. However one thing is for certain: you will not be prosecuted in France for arguing that these events occured. You are liable to prosecution in Turkey for mentioning the occurence of the Armenian Genocide.

If all countries would have to recognise all the bad things they have done before joining EU, there will be one only member: Luxembourg.

^ That's not the issue eomer. France has committed many bad things in history. So has my country - especially the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. However these things are openly discussed and acknowledged and there are museums and books published and TV documentaries telling people what happened. It's not that we dwell on the shameful aspects of our history, sometimes they are forgotten more than they ought to be, and perhaps they are skated over lightly in school lessons. However there is no systematic attempt from the government to deny that they occurred and no government officials deliberately wipe out shameful episodes from school history books. However this is exactly what is happening in Turkey. It's shameful and it is most definitely different from our own confrontation of history.

France did do positive things in the colonies such as founding cities, ports, building roads, railways, setting up systems of law and order. Missionary activity, though we tend to view it as cultural imperialism today, was nonetheless benevolent. The Missionaries went through great personal hardship and danger to bring what they was the light of Christianity to the dark places in the world.

I have never read about 300,000 people slaughtered in Madagascar by the French. I also don't know about massacres in Cameroon. Please link me to sources to support these arguments. However one thing is for certain: you will not be prosecuted in France for arguing that these events occured. You are liable to prosecution in Turkey for mentioning the occurence of the Armenian Genocide.


The positive was nothing compared to the negative, when France (and the other europeans) colonised africa, they just stoped time over there (and the continent had already been wrecked by slavery), of course the french founded cities such as abidjan, but if we hadn't been there, other big cities would have emerged, we also destroyed the economy of the place, created a racist regime where africans were not considered as equal human beings and to this you add the horrible repression.

And France never trully recognised most of its crimes in Africa, so before trying to find out the good that has been done, better accept the negative we did.

And concerning the madagascar slaugher, I mixed up everything, sorry, it was not 300 000 dead, but around 100 000, and it took place in 1948 (or 1947), unfortunatly, all this information comes from books and articles, but I'm sure if you google a bit, you'll find infos on them.


But you are right when you say you will not be prosecuted in France for saying such things, but the medias never ever talk about this sort of things (they are only timidly starting to talk about the algerian war)


EDIT: ok I googled 5 secs to find things on those slaughters, so here you go (I didn't read those articles fully, I just posted them to give you some clues)

http://www.humanite.fr/journal/1997-12-24/1997-12-24-794523

http://www.grioo.com/blogs/tiptop/index.php/2005/07/02/245-complement-dinformations-sur-le-massacre-des-bamilekes-par-mongo-beti

The issue is not recognition here - after all, what would it mean to the dead people (be it Turkish or Armenian) after 90 years? The issue is, it won't end in just recognition, and there will be further demands following such a recognition. It's called "foot in the door phenomenon", once Turkey has accepted even the slightest bit of wrongdiong, this time there will be demands of payback. It won't even matter whether those that suffered have died a long time ago, it will be putting the bankrupt Armenian state on Turkish welfare. Next it will be denouncing Northern Cyprus, which would probably nullify the rights of all the Turks (including Turkish Cypriots who have every right to live there and who probably have lost property to the Greeks in the soth as well) and letting Greek Cypriots gain more land to build tax evading businesses and all inclusive hotels to sustain their own welfare state. And it goes on and on. I don't even mention the Kurdish issue.

The positive was nothing compared to the negative, when France (and the other europeans) colonised africa, they just stoped time over there (and the continent had already been wrecked by slavery), of course the french founded cities such as abidjan, but if we hadn't been there, other big cities would have emerged, we also destroyed the economy of the place, created a racist regime where africans were not considered as equal human beings and to this you add the horrible repression.

And France never trully recognised most of its crimes in Africa, so before trying to find out the good that has been done, better accept the negative we did.

And concerning the madagascar slaugher, I mixed up everything, sorry, it was not 300 000 dead, but around 100 000, and it took place in 1948 (or 1947), unfortunatly, all this information comes from books and articles, but I'm sure if you google a bit, you'll find infos on them.


But you are right when you say you will not be prosecuted in France for saying such things, but the medias never ever talk about this sort of things (they are only timidly starting to talk about the algerian war)


EDIT: ok I googled 5 secs to find things on those slaughters, so here you go (I didn't read those articles fully, I just posted them to give you some clues)

http://www.humanite.fr/journal/1997-12-24/1997-12-24-794523

http://www.grioo.com/blogs/tiptop/index.php/2005/07/02/245-complement-dinformations-sur-le-massacre-des-bamilekes-par-mongo-betiIn British Africa the colonies were actually far wealthier relative to the rest of the world at the point of independence than they are now. Blaming colonialism for Third World ills is something of a scapegoat and excuse. Look at Thailand for example - a country that was never colonised. Thailand is wealthier than neighbouring Burma (formerly British) and IndoChinese countries (formerly French) but then it's poorer than Malaysia and Singapore (formerly British). There is no clear cut case either for or against colonialism. Indeed the poorer countries are poorer more because of communism and warfare (Indochina) and a military dictatorship (Burma) than because of the British and French colonial legacy.

And I did a Google search for French atrocities in Madagascar and the worst I could find was 45,000 in sepression of a rebellion. That is shameful but it's of a much smaller magnitude than the Armenian Genocide and was not a deliberate attempt to wipe out an entire ethnic or national group. It therefore struggles under the label "genocide".

Armenians had already suffered large scale killings in the late 19th century. Turkish intellectuals estimate 800,000 to 1 million killed in the 1915 period:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

"There are a number of Turkish intellectuals who support theses of genocide, including Ragip Zarakolu and Ali Ertem, as well as Taner Akçam and Halil Berktay, despite being protested strongly by some Turkish nationalists. Orhan Pamuk, a famous Turkish novelist, has also recently told the Swiss press that he believes that one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey."
What kind of answer is that?Did you read my post or you randomly typing same answers...
Listen Monkey,Yet on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, the world community has again chosen to watch, wait and, so far, do nothing...
Where was your precious EU?Just 10 years ago you watched it...ONLY 10 YEARS AGO.
Where the hell were you if you are so caring?Bunch of hypocrats!

What kind of answer is that?Did you read my post or you randomly typing same answers...
Listen Monkey,Yet on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, the world community has again chosen to watch, wait and, so far, do nothing...
Where was your precious EU?Just 10 years ago you watched it...ONLY 10 YEARS AGO.
Where the hell were you if you are so caring?Bunch of hypocrats!No we are not hypocrites if we do not respond to crisis in Africa. We are only hypocrites if we accuse others of what we do ourselves - which in this case would be if we covered up and denied our crimes in history. We are not hypocrites because we do not cover up our crimes - but Turkey does. I suggest you look up the meaning of the word "hypocrite" before using it in debate. :|

If all countries would have to recognise all the bad things they have done before joining EU, there will be one only member: Luxembourg.
for sure :yes:

for sure :yes:But as I said to eomer, the other countries do not systematcially deny their past crimes, Turkey does.

No we re not hypocrites if we do not respind to crisie in Africa. We are only hypocrites if we accuse others of what we do ourselves - which in this case would be if we covered up and denied our crimes in history. We are not hypocrites because we do not cover up our crimes - but Turkey does.
Bla bla,10 YEARS MONKEY 10 YEARS....WHERE THE FVCK WERE YOU?

The issue is not recognition here - after all, what would it mean to the dead people (be it Turkish or Armenian) after 90 years? The issue is, it won't end in just recognition, and there will be further demands following such a recognition. It's called "foot in the door phenomenon", once Turkey has accepted even the slightest bit of wrongdiong, this time there will be demands of payback. It won't even matter whether those that suffered have died a long time ago, it will be putting the bankrupt Armenian state on Turkish welfare. Next it will be denouncing Northern Cyprus, which would probably nullify the rights of all the Turks (including Turkish Cypriots who have every right to live there and who probably have lost property to the Greeks in the soth as well) and letting Greek Cypriots gain more land to build tax evading businesses and all inclusive hotels to sustain their own welfare state. And it goes on and on. I don't even mention the Kurdish issue.No-one is suggesting that Turkey must pay financial compensation. However an inclusion and admission of the Genocide in Turkish history books, formal apologies from senior politicians, and memorials to the atrocity would go a long away towards healing historical wounds. Right now Turkey is actively denying that the Genocide took place at all. That is simply not acceptable and no other EU country has a comparable policy.

Bla bla,10 YEARS MONKEY 10 YEARS....WHERE THE FVCK WERE YOU?Where the fuck should we be? Where the fuck were you? You Turks are always boasting about your powerful military right? Well go and use it for something useful for a change! Go and fix Africa yourselves!! It is not Europe's duty to solve the world's problems - though sometimes we try. And as I said before, Europe is not hypocritical to criticise Turkey's confrontation with its own genocidal history unless we are doing the same thing ourselves. However it's perfectly obvious that we are not doing that ourselves. No EU member actively denies its historical crimes but Turkey does. End of story....

. However it's perfectly obvious that we are not doing that ourselves. ....
Than shut the hell up!!!

Than shut the hell up!!!Are you completely stupid? Why would we shut up? We Europeans are not denying our historical crimes but you Turks are. If we criticise you for covering up your crimes then that's perfectly fair and rational - so no I will not shut up. The Turks committed genocide against the Armenians and the Turks are now actively covering it up and denying that it happened. Turkey's behaviour is shameful and disgusting. No EU member behaves like that.

edit

In British Africa the colonies were actually far wealthier relative to the rest of the world at the point of independence than they are now. Blaming colonialism for Third World ills is something of a scapegoat and excuse. Look at Thailand for example - a country that was never colonised. Thailand is wealthier than neighbouring Burma (formerly British) and IndoChinese countries (formerly French) but then it's poorer than Malaysia and Singapore (formerly British). There is no clear cut case either for or against colonialism. Indeed the poorer countries are poorer more because of communism and warfare (Indochina) and a military dictatorship (Burma) than because of the British and French colonial legacy.

And I did a Google search for French atrocities in Madagascar and the worst I could find was 45,000 in sepression of a rebellion. That is shameful but it's of a much smaller magnitude than the Armenian Genocide and was not a deliberate attempt to wipe out an entire ethnic or national group. It therefore struggles under the label "genocide".


This thread is not about the third world's ills or whatever, so stick to the subject please, if you want to talk about it, create a new subject or PM me, I'll be glad to respond.

Concerning the french atrocities, I don't know what you site you fell upon, but many many historians have stated that around 100 000 were killed, wasn't it mentioned in the link I gave you? Sorry if it didn't.

And concerning the armenian genocide, I am not excusing Turkey here, I think they should recognise it, just like the germans recognised the hollocaust.

I was only pointing out those slaughters to show that France never fully accepted its past, understand? I was absolutly not making comparisons with Turkey

Are you completely stupid? Why would we shut up? We Europeans are not denying our historical crimes but you Turks are. If we criticise you for covering up your crimes then that's perfectly fair and rational - so no I will not shut up. The Turks committed genocide against the Armenians and the Turks are now actively covering it up and denying that it happened. Turkey's behaviour is shameful and disgusting. No EU member behaves like that.

Monkey, at the cost of sounding redundant I am going to repeat myself:

If the EU had a problem with the Armenian massacre (and personally I think it should have a problem) this should have made clear years ago.
The last move from the EU parliament is just a pathetic attempt to add even more hurdles so that the Turks lose their patience and eventually leave so that the EU can say: "see, they weren't ready" and avoid to deal with the outcome of a successful turkish bid (i.e. granting full membership).

The fact that China has invaded a legitimate country, massacred and buried alive tens of thousands of Tibetans, crushed with tanks young students that were calling for democratic reforms never seemed to be an issue for our governments as we happily sign contracts, agree on parterships and sign joint declarations with the chinese communist rulers.

I am still waiting to read a declaration from the EU parliament that tell the Russians: "until you recognise what you did in Chechnya we shall not buy gas from you".

We all know this, let's not pretend it is all about the poor Armenians.

We Europeans are not denying our historical crimes but you Turks are. . No EU member behaves like that.
Are you sure ? You Europeans are not denying,you are fall short again monkey.

Read and learn

Reuters 8 May 2005 Algeria calls on France to admit 1945 massacres By Paul de Bendern ALGIERS, May 8 (Reuters) - President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has called on France to admit its part in the massacres of 45,000 Algerians who took to the streets to demand independence as Europe celebrated victory over Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945. Algeria is marking the 60th anniversary of the repression of pro-independence demonstrators under French colonial rule as Europeans celebrate the end of World War Two in Europe. "The paradox of the massacres of May 8, 1945, is that when the heroic Algerian combatants returned from the fronts in Europe, Africa and elsewhere where they defended France's honour and interests ... the French administration fired on peaceful demonstrators," Bouteflika said in a speech published by state media on Sunday. Colonial forces launched an air and ground offensive against several eastern cities, particularly Setif and Guelma, in response to anti-French riots, which killed more than 100 Europeans. The crackdown lasted several days and according to the Algerian state left 45,000 people dead. European historians put the figure at between 15,000 and 20,000. It marks one of the darkest chapters in the history of Algeria and France, which ruled the North African country with an iron fist from 1830 until 1962. France's ambassador to Algeria said in February that the Setif massacre was an "inexcusable tragedy". It was the most explicit comments by the French state on the disputed event. "The Algerian people are still waiting for France ... that the declarations of the ambassador of France are followed by a more convincing gesture," Bouteflika said in the speech given in Setif on Saturday. Several remembrance events are being held across Algeria. The repression sparked the anti-colonial movement and a long war of independence, costing the lives of 1.5 million Algerians, according to the government. Many French also perished. ADMIT PAST ATROCITIES "The Algerian people have always been waiting for France to admit the acts perpetrated during the colonisation period and the liberation war to pave the way for broader and new friendship and cooperation prospects," Bouteflika said. French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in an interview published on Sunday in Algerian daily El Watan that both countries needed to "look together at the past, in order to overcome the chapter most painful for our two peoples". Algeria and France are gradually normalising ties and are due to sign an important friendship treaty this year, similar to the 1963 Franco-German reconciliation treaty. After seeing its diplomatic and economic influence over Algeria weakened in recent years as the United States developed more oil interests and power in the region, France is trying regain the upper hand. "I don't think it's enough (the French comments) to satisfy the Algerian public ... but it's a step forward as never before has there been such a move from the French," said Benjamin Stora, considered France's leader historian on Algeria. Many Algerian political figures and historians, who call the massacre a genocide, not only want an apology but demand compensation. "Sixty years later, France does not recognise its crimes against humanity," Algerian French-language newspaper La Tribune said on its front page



MONKEY READ IT ONE MORE TIME..
"Sixty years later, France does not recognise its crimes against humanity,"

http://www.preventgenocide.org/news-monitor/2005may1.htm

Monkey, at the cost of sounding redundant I am going to repeat myself:

If the EU had a problem with the Armenian massacre (and personally I think it should have a problem) this should have made clear years ago.
The last move from the EU parliament is just a pathetic attempt to add even more hurdles so that the Turks lose their patience and eventually leave so that the EU can say: "see, they weren't ready" and avoid to deal with the outcome of a successful turkish bid (i.e. granting full membership).

The fact that China has invaded a legitimate country, massacred and buried alive tens of thousands of Tibetans, crushed with tanks young students that were calling for democratic reforms never seemed to be an issue for our governments as we happily sign contracts, agree on parterships and sign joint declarations with the chinese communist rulers.

I am still waiting to read a declaration from the EU parliament that tell the Russians: "until you recognise what you did in Chechnya we shall not buy gas from you".

We all know this, let's not pretend it is all about the poor Armenians.I never saw this post before but essentially I agree with you. There are many in Europe who oppose Turkey's membership and will find any excuse to foil their bid. I would like to add one more time that I am strongly in favour of Turkey joing the EU. However this issue really infuriates me. Turkey is just blatantly lying about its past. They committed a huge crime and are actively covering it up. This is despicable and no other EU member is doing the same. Why do Turks feel the need to cover up their history like that? It suggests an ugly nationalsim lurking under Turkey's bonnet that is not in tune with the democratic and open political culture of the EU.

OHHH
Forgot the add "France's behaviour is shameful and disgusting. No EU member behaves like that".......oopppss

hahaha,how you like it now monkey boy.

FRANCE is just blatantly lying about its past. They committed a huge crime and are actively covering it up. This is despicable and no other EU member is doing the same. Why do FRENCH feel the need to cover up their history like that? It suggests an ugly nationalsim lurking under FRANCE's bonnet that is not in tune with the democratic and open political culture of the EU.


Look it still works when you fill the blanks with "FRANCE"

Are you sure ? You Europeans are not denying,you are fall short again monkey.

Read and learn

Reuters 8 May 2005 Algeria calls on France to admit 1945 massacres By Paul de Bendern ALGIERS, May 8 (Reuters) - President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has called on France to admit its part in the massacres of 45,000 Algerians who took to the streets to demand independence as Europe celebrated victory over Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945. Algeria is marking the 60th anniversary of the repression of pro-independence demonstrators under French colonial rule as Europeans celebrate the end of World War Two in Europe. "The paradox of the massacres of May 8, 1945, is that when the heroic Algerian combatants returned from the fronts in Europe, Africa and elsewhere where they defended France's honour and interests ... the French administration fired on peaceful demonstrators," Bouteflika said in a speech published by state media on Sunday. Colonial forces launched an air and ground offensive against several eastern cities, particularly Setif and Guelma, in response to anti-French riots, which killed more than 100 Europeans. The crackdown lasted several days and according to the Algerian state left 45,000 people dead. European historians put the figure at between 15,000 and 20,000. It marks one of the darkest chapters in the history of Algeria and France, which ruled the North African country with an iron fist from 1830 until 1962. France's ambassador to Algeria said in February that the Setif massacre was an "inexcusable tragedy". It was the most explicit comments by the French state on the disputed event. "The Algerian people are still waiting for France ... that the declarations of the ambassador of France are followed by a more convincing gesture," Bouteflika said in the speech given in Setif on Saturday. Several remembrance events are being held across Algeria. The repression sparked the anti-colonial movement and a long war of independence, costing the lives of 1.5 million Algerians, according to the government. Many French also perished. ADMIT PAST ATROCITIES "The Algerian people have always been waiting for France to admit the acts perpetrated during the colonisation period and the liberation war to pave the way for broader and new friendship and cooperation prospects," Bouteflika said. French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in an interview published on Sunday in Algerian daily El Watan that both countries needed to "look together at the past, in order to overcome the chapter most painful for our two peoples". Algeria and France are gradually normalising ties and are due to sign an important friendship treaty this year, similar to the 1963 Franco-German reconciliation treaty. After seeing its diplomatic and economic influence over Algeria weakened in recent years as the United States developed more oil interests and power in the region, France is trying regain the upper hand. "I don't think it's enough (the French comments) to satisfy the Algerian public ... but it's a step forward as never before has there been such a move from the French," said Benjamin Stora, considered France's leader historian on Algeria. Many Algerian political figures and historians, who call the massacre a genocide, not only want an apology but demand compensation. "Sixty years later, France does not recognise its crimes against humanity," Algerian French-language newspaper La Tribune said on its front page



MONKEY READ IT ONE MORE TIME..
"Sixty years later, France does not recognise its crimes against humanity,"

http://www.preventgenocide.org/news-monitor/2005may1.htm1) This is not genocide. It may be a massacre but it's not an attempt to wipe out an entire people.

2) The French government does not actively deny this and neither does the French media. The French government does not prohibit admission of France's crimes and French teachers are free to cover the atrocities in French schools. I am willing to bet that no French forumer will come on here in a fit of rage (as the Turks have on this thread) and deny France's past atrocities. Indeed forumers like Virtual are doing precisely the opposite and actually emphasising France's past atrocities. And just look at this quote from your article:

"French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said in an interview published on Sunday in Algerian daily El Watan that both countries needed to "look together at the past, in order to overcome the chapter most painful for our two peoples".

Is the Turkish Foreign Minister going to Armenia to normalise relations and write a shared history with them? Like hell he his!!

Look it still works when you fill the blanks with "FRANCE"No it deosn't. The French are not covering up their history and not prohibiting debate on the subject. They are in a process of recognising that history and confronting it which is what mature democracies do. Denial is the response of immature nationalism.

This should be one of the main conditions to start negotiations regarding Turkey's EU membership. If this is not done it means Turkey is not mature enough to join such union.

It depends : our nationalist right is powerful and is a strong revisionist lobby.

OHHH
Forgot the add "France's behaviour is shameful and disgusting. No EU member behaves like that".......oopppss

hahaha,how you like it now monkey boy.No France's behaviour is not shameful or disgusting. France is not denying its past. Turkey is.

I don't give a shit about what the Turks think of France personnaly.

I don't give a shit about what the Turks think of France personnaly.
vice versa

This thread is not about the third world's ills or whatever, so stick to the subject please, if you want to talk about it, create a new subject or PM me, I'll be glad to respond.

Concerning the french atrocities, I don't know what you site you fell upon, but many many historians have stated that around 100 000 were killed, wasn't it mentioned in the link I gave you? Sorry if it didn't.

And concerning the armenian genocide, I am not excusing Turkey here, I think they should recognise it, just like the germans recognised the hollocaust.

I was only pointing out those slaughters to show that France never fully accepted its past, understand? I was absolutly not making comparisons with TurkeyBut unfortunately they (the Turks) are making comparisons with France and saying that France is as bad as Turkey and covering up its past in the same way that Turkey is. This is simply not the case. French forumers here (you and Giri) are coming on here and admitting France's crimes, offering links showing how bad they are, and saying that many French do not realise their extent or that France's process of confronting its history is not complete. That may well be the case but whichever way you cut it there is no outright and systematic denial of France's crimes. French people are free to proclaim them and regularly do so. The French government does not try to stifle the debate.

Actually, you do care, because the EU membership depends of it.... even though you might be against it.

To the people getting all worked up about this...I hate to break it to you but in 10 to 15 years the Turkish government will have recognized the Armenian Genocide as well as Cyprus.
Better get used to it, because this is more likely to happen than not...

Monkey don't get me wrong but I trust Algerian historians and their Presidents words than yours.....But it's only me...

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has called on France to admit its part in the massacres of 45,000 Algerians!!!!!

keyword:Admit

It depends : our nationalist right is powerful and is a strong revisionist lobby.But there's also a centre, various shades of left, and a milder right who carry the majority and do accept the crimes of France's colonial past. Turkey's crimes are greater yet the government actively intervenes to deny the past and prosecutes those who mention it.

Actually, you do care, because the EU membership depends of it.... even though you might be against it.
No seriously I don't give a shit!!!

Monkey don't get me wrong but I trust Algerian historians and their Presidents words than yours.....But it's only me...

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has called on France to admit its part in the massacres of 45,000 Algerians!!!!!

keyword:AdmitFrance freely admits to atrocities in the Algerian War. Turkey does not admit to the Armenian Genocide. See the difference?

France freely admits to atrocities in the Algerian War. Turkey does not admit to the Armenian Genocide. See the difference?
No they don't according to Algerian President...Should I trust you or the President...See the difference.

France does not admit the Sétif slaughter as it is, colonialist attitude is still very strongly rooted in the society, as well as in Britain

You idealize Monkey : we've got the same debates here in France. And this is a very difficult judiciary issue : is Turkey the legitimate successor of the Ottoman Empire ? We had the same discussion about Vichy France : was Vichy the legitimate French State ? Mitterand always refused to apologize because he believed France, as a country, didn't have to apologize for crimes commited by a puppet régime which was no more France, as he saw it. Chirac has another conception.

Same thing with Turkey : do modern Turks have to apologize for crimes commited by another administration, by another entity ? Very uneasy to answer ...

And I insist : our revisionist lobby is powerful : Sarkozy is implied in it.

Well, obviously Turkey is the descendant of the Ottoman Empire.

The massacre of Setif hasn't been recognise individually but as a part of the Algerian war of independance as a whole I think.

Yet, we pretty much all know the Algerian war turned into a complete mess and that the occupation of Algeria was definitly a wrong thing.

France does not admit the Sétif slaughter as it is, colonialist attitude is still very strongly rooted in the society, as well as in BritainThe colonialist attitude is most definitely not strongly rooted in Britain. I love the history of the British Empire, good and bad, but in that I am VERY unusual. I am also NOT a colonialist.

The massacres are not disputed except in their extent. Most European historians put the number at 15,000 or 20,000.

I think that we've gotten off of the issue. The bottom line is that Turkey does not want to play by anyone's rules! They never have. But in this case can you exactly blame them? They are feeling pressured by the EU and being critized (albeit justifiably so by the EU and other countries). Obviously we aren't blaming modern day Turks for the events (Armenian genocide) that occured back then, but if modern day Turks are denying such an event took place then they have to be willing to pay the concequences (and it must be said that the government is mostly to blame for this, they have systematically denied these events took place for years and so this is what the people of Turkey have been learning).


Regarding the Cyprus issue, if Turkey doesn't recognize a current EU member then how in the hell can it expect to become a member itself!? Its an oxymoron! In this case, I don't feel sorry for Turkey.

OK Monkey now all comes to this,you're blunty accusing Turks not to admit to the crimes and telling France is admitting to their crimes is the DIFFERENCE,we know it's not true.They never admit Algerian Genocide...So your 8 pages of nonsense ends here.
Hopefully you have enough balls to apoligize from our Turkish forumers.

Also thank you to Virtual and Giri clearing the subject with their insider info,maybe now monkey can admit too.

I don't have the arrogance to overpower a whole country because of those questions : each country with a turmented history has the same uneasy problems. It's up to the Turks to deal with their memory : we've all got enough at home to worry about.

You idealize Monkey : we've got the same debates here in France. And this is a very difficult judiciary issue : is Turkey the legitimate successor of the Ottoman Empire ? We had the same discussion about Vichy France : was Vichy the legitimate French State ? Mitterand always refused to apologize because he believed France, as a country, didn't have to apologize for crimes commited by a puppet régime which was no more France, as he saw it. Chirac has another conception.

Same thing with Turkey : do modern Turks have to apologize for crimes commited by another administration, by another entity ? Very uneasy to answer ...

And I insist : our revisionist lobby is powerful : Sarkozy is implied in it.But as you say yourself you are having a debate in France. There is no debate in Turkey. Do you realise that if you proclaim the Armenian genocide in Turkey you are open to prosection from the government? Is that the case in France? No! And what exactly is the nature of this revisionism? is it saying that well known atrocities did not take place at all or merely that colonialism was not a uniformly black and evil thing (as most PC historians would have you believe)? I ask because if it's the latter then you can count me in with the "revisionists". The European colonial empires were not uniformly monstrous. They certainly did some monstrous things but they had redeeming qualities too.

I think something surely happened, whether or not it is genocide, how can anyone say without the facts?

Armenia should accept Turkey's offer to investigate the circumstances together, combine their pools of information, and with international participation, determine, as best as possible, the facts of what happened.

So far Armenia has refused to allow anyone to investigate the incidents as passionately as Turkey has refused to acknowledge anything at all.

When you have all the facts on the table, then you can decide. It was several months, and tens of thousands of lives, before the United States and United Nations declared that what was happening to Bosnia's Muslims was genocide. This with videos, confessions, testimonies, photographs, etc, etc, etc.

The Armenian situation is farther removed, historically speaking, and even less easy to determine because there is absolutely conclusive proof to support either Ankara or Turkey.

All we know, for certain, is that an Armenian rebellion saw a large exodus of Turkish civilians fleeing the country, most with horror stories. And the Turkish response say a large number of Armenians in the same boat, although with a death toll shown to be much, much higher.

We simply need to know more, and Armenia has to be willing to let us look.

@ Monkey: If you speak about the genocide in Turkey you will probably be sent to jail. Read the bolded parts of the articles to see what I mean.

EU Official Accuses Turkey of Provocation

By JAN SLIVA
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 13, 2005; 5:26 PM



BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The official in charge of European Union expansion accused Turkey of provocation on Tuesday, saying it was no coincidence that the trial of a Turkish novelist would clash with a EU summit.

Olli Rehn, the EU commissioner overseeing expansion plans, said the prosecution of author Orhan Pamuk violated a human rights convention.

He also said it would take at least 10-15 years to finish negotiations with Turkey on its possible accession to the bloc, and warned Ankara that the pace of the talks will depend on how quickly it recognizes Cyprus.

"The Pamuk case raises serious questions about the interpretation of Turkey's new penal code. The Dec. 16 date can't be just a coincidence, it has to be a provocation," Rehn told the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee. Dec. 16 is also the date of an EU summit.

Rehn added that the case violated the European Convention on Human Rights.

Pamuk has been charged with insulting Turkey's national character and could face prison for his comments on Turkey's killing of Armenians and Kurds.

"Thirty-thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it," Pamuk was quoted as saying in an interview with a Swiss newspaper magazine in February.

The "one million Armenians" refers to Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, which Armenians and several other nations recognize as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey vehemently denies that a genocide took place, saying the death toll is inflated and Armenians were killed in a civil war as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, eventually giving way to the Turkish Republic in 1923.

Turkey, which has been trying to improve its human rights record as it vies for EU membership, is extremely sensitive about both the Armenian and Kurdish issues, and the new Turkish penal code makes it a crime to denigrate Turkey's national identity.

The code _ adopted at the EU's insistence _ was debated earlier this year and freedom of speech advocates said the clause on national identity was too vague and could lead to the imprisonment of artists, scholars and journalists.

Rehn said the European Commission will continue to closely monitor human rights issues in Turkey, but still expects the accession negotiations to start on Oct. 3 as scheduled, despite EU government grumbling over Turkey's refusal to recognize Cyprus.

In August, Turkey signed a customs protocol extending its existing customs arrangements with the 25-member EU to the 10 new members including Cyprus. But it accompanied its signature with a separate declaration saying this did not mean it was formally recognizing the divided Mediterranean island.

Rehn said formal recognition "was not a precondition" to start the Oct. 3 talks. "However, it is regrettable that Turkey had to issue a declaration accompanying the protocol," he said.

The European Court of Human Rights _ based in Strasbourg, France _ ordered Turkey on Tuesday to pay more than $85,932 to the relatives of two suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party who were killed in a police raid in 1996.

An anti-terrorist squad shot Omer Bayram and Ridvan Altun in an operation which the court said violated three articles of the human rights convention.

© 2005 The Associated Press

By revisionism, I mean those who erect statues in the honor of the OAS. Our political class is also largely revisionist as it refuses to deal with the exactitude of our colonial actions : school programmes have even been modified. Just like in Turkey ...

You idealize Monkey : we've got the same debates here in France. And this is a very difficult judiciary issue : is Turkey the legitimate successor of the Ottoman Empire ? We had the same discussion about Vichy France : was Vichy the legitimate French State ? Mitterand always refused to apologize because he believed France, as a country, didn't have to apologize for crimes commited by a puppet régime which was no more France, as he saw it. Chirac has another conception.

Same thing with Turkey : do modern Turks have to apologize for crimes commited by another administration, by another entity ? Very uneasy to answer ...

And I insist : our revisionist lobby is powerful : Sarkozy is implied in it.There was Vichy France and most French are ashamed of it. There was also the Free French resistance of which most French are proud. Mitterand should have apologised in my opinion but he has a point in that the real French government was overthrown by the Nazis and the collaborators were unelected and arguably illegitimate representatives of France.

But as you say yourself you are having a debate in France. There is no debate in Turkey..
You are wrong again...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0926/p07s02-woeu.html

I don't have the arrogance to overpower a whole country because of those questions : each country with a turmented history has the same uneasy problems. It's up to the Turks to deal with their memory : we've all got enough at home to worry about.It's not the same giri. In France there is free debate. In Turkey the debate is completely stifled. It's nationalist and completely contrary to democractic culture.

During the Gaullist years, there was no debate either : France wholly resisted. Case closed. Those issues need maturity : Turkey just needs time. We've only judged Papon recently and torturers in Algeria like Aussaresses are free.

It's not the same giri. In France there is free debate. In Turkey the debate is completely stifled. It's nationalist and completely contrary to democractic culture.
2 seconds ago you said no debate in Turkey now it's there but stifled.
Hey man be a man and admit you were wrong and stop fallen lower and lower in every post.

You are wrong again...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0926/p07s02-woeu.htmlI am not wrong at all - i never have been. The article shows a promising move in the right direction but I only have to read two lines before I come across the critical words:

"Turkish nationalists, who back the official line that there was no Armenian genocide"

There we have it. The Turkish government actively denies the Armenian genocide. there is an "offical line" that no such slaughter took place - in plain contrast to the reality recognised by historians all over the rest of the world. I challenge you to find me an equivalent for France or any current EU member.

2 seconds ago you said no debate in Turkey now it's there but stifled. Hey man be a man and admit you were wrong and stop fallen lower and lower in every post.It is stifled. Denying the Armenian genocide opens you to prosecution in Turkey. The very mention of the Armenian Genocide provokes vitriolic rebukes from Turkish ambassadors all over the world. Is that stifling the debate? Yes. Is that an open debate? No.

By revisionism, I mean those who erect statues in the honor of the OAS. Our political class is also largely revisionist as it refuses to deal with the exactitude of our colonial actions : school programmes have even been modified. Just like in Turkey ...What school programmes have been modified. To say what exactly?

Monkey, it'll come one day ... Turkey's recent history is intense and chaotic : they still haven't had enough time to judge their past. It is changing and it'll be a very long process but which is worth it.

School programs have been modified to make colonization less severe for France. When you're adult, it's OK to have a unbiased vision, but our children must know the atrocities we commited. They're occulted.

NB : When I passed my BAC, I had this comment on my historical essay : " You criticize France too quickly". The subject was the French colonization.

You idealize Monkey : we've got the same debates here in France. And this is a very difficult judiciary issue : is Turkey the legitimate successor of the Ottoman Empire ? We had the same discussion about Vichy France : was Vichy the legitimate French State ? Mitterand always refused to apologize because he believed France, as a country, didn't have to apologize for crimes commited by a puppet régime which was no more France, as he saw it. Chirac has another conception.

Same thing with Turkey : do modern Turks have to apologize for crimes commited by another administration, by another entity ? Very uneasy to answer ...

And I insist : our revisionist lobby is powerful : Sarkozy is implied in it.
excelent point of view :yes:

Ok monkey I give up,you are just unbelievable,many people here try to explain you something and you still act like you are the only one who knows everything.I seriously believe you don't read other peoples posts....
You are wrong ,you know it , I know it ,who can read and understand knows it.....
Good luck.

During the Gaullist years, there was no debate either : France wholly resisted. Case closed. Those issues need maturity : Turkey just needs time. We've only judged Papon recently and torturers in Algeria like Aussaresses are free.Yes there was a delay and the political class was reluctant to confrn the issue. hwovere that's different from having an active policy of cover up. I bet even during de Gaulle's time (and trust me I absolutely loathe de Gaulle....) there was no prosecution for those who claimed France had commited atrocities in Algeria. In fact it was well known. No-one was surprised when Aussaresses confessed. It was well known already.

Ok monkey I give up,you are just unbelievable,many people here try to explain you something and you still act like you are the only one who knows everything.I seriously believe you don't read other peoples posts....
You are wrong ,you know it , I know it ,who can read and understand knows it.....
Good luck.You are hiding behind well meaning French who are dismayed at the continuing resistence of parts of their political class to fully acknowledge France's past. Their attitude could not be more opposite to yours. You are denying Turkey's past. You have denied that Turkey committed genocide. You are precisely the kind of person that Giri and Virtual dislike in France. This subject has been debated many times on these forums and I have never seen a Turk admit the genocide. Not one. You are brainwashed through school and the terms of debate in Turkey are strictly controlled by the government.

Ok monkey I give up,you are just unbelievable,many people here try to explain you something and you still act like you are the only one who knows everything.I seriously believe you don't read other peoples posts....
You are wrong ,you know it , I know it ,who can read and understand knows it.....
Good luck.
Not everything he says is wrong though... nationalists always try to prevent debate like we have seen just recently (at the Bilgi University). Debate is nothing to be feared of.

Monkey, it'll come one day ... Turkey's recent history is intense and chaotic : they still haven't had enough time to judge their past. It is changing and it'll be a very long process but which is worth it.Yes but the issue here is Turkey joining the EU. This debate exposes the extent to which Turkey is not yet a mature free thinking democracy. It is nationalist. There is a total denial of a well documented historical event led by the government. We have to ask ourselves whether Turkey is politically mature enough to particpate in EU government.School programs have been modified to make colonization less severe for France. When you're adult, it's OK to have a unbiased vision, but our children must know the atrocities we commited. They're occulted.

NB : When I passed my BAC, I had this comment on my historical essay : " You criticize France too quickly". The subject was the French colonization.I thought so. There is a reaction against the Politically Correct version of history that emphasises the evil of the colonial era to the almost total exclusion of any redeeming features. I actually have some sympathy with that view myself. So long as they do not deny atrocities (which is what Turkey is doing), and are merely trying to restore a more balanced perspective of colonial history, then I am all in favour. The problem with history as currently taught, at least in Britain, is that the European colonial empires are seen as exclusively evil and exploitative - responsible for all of the world's problems today. However that is simply not the case. Here is an extract from a book by a very respected, mainstream, albeit somewhat controversial historian called Niall Ferguson on the British Empire. As you can see his views of the Empire are somewhat more positive than those of the Politically Correct orthodoxy. I largely agree with him. Do you regard this as revisionism or not?



Pax Britannia - Anglobalisation

Without the spread of British rule around the World, it is hard to believe that the structures of liberal capitalism would have been so successfully established in so many different economies around the world. Those empires that adopted different models - the Russian and the Chinese - imposed incalculable misery on their subject peoples. Without the influence of British imperial rule, it is hard to believe that the institutions of parliamentary democracy would have been adopted by the majority of states in the world, as they are today. India, the world’s largest democracy, owes more than it is fashionable to acknowledge to British rule. Its elite schools, its universities, its civil service, its armed forces, press and its parliamentary system all have discernibly British models. Finally, there is the English language itself, perhaps the most important single export of the last 300 years. Today 350 million people speak English as their first language and around 450 million have it as a second language. That is roughly one in every seven people on the planet.

Of course no one would claim that the record of the British Empire was unblemished. On the contrary, it often failed to live up to its own ideal of individual liberty, particularly in the early era of enslavement, transportation and the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of indigenous peoples. Yet the nineteenth-century Empire undeniably pioneered free trade, free capital movements and, with the abolition of slavery, free labour. It invested immense sums in developing a global network of modern communications. It spread and enforced the rule of law over vast areas. Though it fought many small wars, the Empire maintained a global peace unmatched before or since. In the twentieth century too it more than justified its own existence, for the alternatives to British rule represented by the German and Japanese empires were clearly far worse. And without its Empire, it is questionable that Britain could have withstood them.

There would have certainly not have been as much free trade between the 1840s and 1930s had it not been for the British Empire. Relinquishing Britain’s colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century would have led to higher tariffs in their markets, and perhaps other forms of trade discrimination. The evidence for this need not be purely hypothetical: it manifested itself in the highly protectionist policies adopted by the United States and India after they secured independence as well as in the tariffs adopted by Britain’s imperial rivals France, Germany and Russia in the 1870s and ever since. Britain’s defence budget before WWI can therefore be seen as a remarkably low insurance premium against international protectionism. According to one estimate, the economic benefit to the UK of enforcing free trade could have been as high as 6.5% of GNI. No one has yet ventured to estimate what the benefit to the world economy as a whole may have been; but it was a benefit and not a cost seems beyond dispute, given the catastrophic consequences of the global descent into protectionism as British imperial power reached it’s apex in the 1930s.

Nor would there have been so much international mobility of labour - and hence so much global convergence of incomes before 1914 - without the British Empire. True, the United States was always the most attractive destination for nineteenth-century migrants from Europe; nor did all the migrants originate in the colonising countries. But it should not be forgotten that the core of the US had been under British Rule for the better part of a century and a half before the War of Independence, and that the differences between independent and British North America remained minor.

It is also worth remembering that the significance of the ‘white’ dominions as destinations for British emigrants increased markedly after 1914, as the US tightened restrictions on immigration and, after 1929, endured a far worse Depression than anything experienced in the Sterling bloc. Finally, we should not lose sight of the vast numbers of Asians who left India and China to work as indentured labourers, many of them on British plantations and mines over the course of the nineteenth century. There is no question that the majority of them suffered great hardship; many of them might well have been better staying at home. But once again we cannot pretend that this mobilization of cheap and probably underemployed Asian labour to grow rubber and dig gold had no economic value.

Consider too the role of the British Empire in facilitating capital export to the less developed countries of the World. Although some measures of international financial integration seem to suggest that the 1990s saw greater cross-border capital flows than in the 1890s, in reality much of today’s overseas investment goes on within the developed world. In 1996 only 28% of foreign direct investment went to developing countries, whereas in 1913 the proportion was 63%. Another, stricter measure shows that in 1997 only around 5% of world stock capital was invested in countries with per capita incomes of 20% or less of US/UK per capita GDP. In 1913 the figure was 25%. A plausible hypothesis is that empire - and in particular the British Empire - encouraged investors to put their money in developing economies. The reasoning here is straightforward. Investing in such economies is risky. They tend to be far away and more prone to economic, social and political upheaval. But the extension of Empire into the developing world had the effect of mitigating such risks.

For all these reasons, the notion that British imperialism tended to impoverish colonized countries seems inherently problematic. That is not to say that many former colonies are not exceedingly poor. Today for example, par capita GDP in Great Britain is roughly twenty-eight times what it is in Zambia, which means the average Zambian has to live roughly £2 per day. But to blame this on the legacy of colonialism is not very persuasive, when the differential between British and Zambian incomes was so much less at the end of the colonial period. In 1955, British per capita income was just seven times greater than Zambian. It has been since independence and the initial installation of a Soviet sponsored regime that the gap between the colonizer and the ex-colony has become a gulf. The same is true of nearly all former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, with the notable exception of Botswana.

There is good evidence that the imposition of British-style institutions has tended to enhance a county’s economic prospects, particularly in those settings where indigenous cultures were relatively weak because of thin population like the Aborigines. This allows British institutions to dominate with little dilution. But what British institutions promoted development? First, we should not underestimate the benefits conferred by British law and administration. A recent survey of forty-nine countries concluded that ‘common-law countries have the strongest, and French-civil-law countries the weakest legal protections of investors’, including both shareholders and creditors. This is of enormous importance in encouraging capital formation, without which entrepreneurs can do little, which to a degree explains the higher level of state protected industries in France. The fact that eighteen of the sample countries have the common-law system is of course down to the fact that at some time or another they were under British rule. A similar point can be made about the nature of British governance. At its apogee in the mid-eighteenth century, two features of Indian and Colonial services are especially striking when compared with many modern regimes in Asia and Africa. First, British administration is remarkably cheap and efficient. Secondly, it is remarkably non-venal. Its sins were generally of omission, not commission. This too cannot wholly be without significance, given the demonstrable correlations today between economic under-performance and both excessive government expenditure and public sector corruption like we are seeing in parts of the former Soviet bloc.

The economic historian David Landes recently drew up a list of measures which ‘the ideal growth-and-development’ government would adopt. Such a government, he suggests, would

1. Secure rights of private property, the better to encourage saving and investment
2. Secure rights of personal liberty against both the abuses of tyranny , crime and corruption
3. Enforce rights of contract
4. Provide stable government, governed by publicly known rules
5. Provide responsive government
6. Provide honest government, with no rents to favour and position
7. Provide moderate, efficient, ungreedy government, to hold taxes down and reduce the government’s claim on the social surplus.

The striking thing about this list is how all of it’s points correspond the British, Imperial and Home rule ideals.

It is a point worth emphasising that to a significant extent British rule did have a benign effect. According to political Scientists like Martin Seymour Lipset, countries that were former British colonies had a significantly better chance of achieving enduring democratisation after independence than those ruled by other countries. Indeed, nearly every country with a population of at least a million that has emerged from the colonial era without succumbing to a dictatorship is a British Colony. True there are many former colonies which have not sustained free institutions due to largely Cold War era influences: Bangladesh, Burma, Kenya, Pakistan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe certainly spring to mind. But in a sample of fifty-three that were formerly British, half (27) were still democracies in 1994. This can be attributed to the way that British rule encouraged the formation of collaboration elites; it may also be related to Christian missionaries, who clearly played a part in encouraging Western-style aspirations for political freedom in Africa and the Caribbean.

In short, what the British Empire proved is that it is empire is a form of international government that can work - and not just for the benefit of the ruling power. It sought to globalise not just on an economic but a legal and political system too.

It has to be said that the experiment of running the world without the Empire cannot be adjudged an unqualified success. The post-imperial age has been characterised by two contradictory tendencies: economic globalisation and political fragmentation. The former has certainly promoted economic growth, those foundations nurtured by the British, but the fruits of this growth without the prudent effect of Empire have been very unevenly distributed. The latter tendency has been associated with political instability, which have played a significant hand in impoverishing the poorer countries of the world.

According to the best available estimates, the average annual rate of growth of world GDP per capita was 2.93% between 1950 and 1973, compared with the miserably low figure of 0.91% for the depressed and war-torn years 1913-50. The entire period from 1913 to 1973 was a time of economic disintegration, however flanked by economic globalisation. These delivered remarkably similar rates of growth in per capita GDP: 1.30% from 1870 to 1913; 1.33% from 1973 to 1998. However, the earlier period of globalisation was associated with a degree of convergence in international income, whereas the recent period has been associated with a marked global divergence, particularly as the rest of the world has pulled away from sub-Saharan Africa. In 1960 real GDP per capita in Britain was around seven times what it was in Zambia. Today it is 28 times greater. There can be little doubt that this is due in part to the lopsided nature of economic globalisation - the fact that capital flows mainly within the developed world and that Trade and Migration are still restricted in may ways. This was less true in the pre 1950 age of globalisation when, partly under the influence of imperial structures, investors were encouraged to put their money into developing economies.

Political Fragmentation is the real problem that is facing the West and in particular the United States in the future, although Anglophone economic and political liberalism remains the most alluring of the world’s cultures, it continues to face, as it has since the Iranian revolution, a serious threat from Islamic fundamentalism. In the Absence of formal empire, it must be open to question how far the dissemation of Western civilisation - meaning the Protestant-Deist-Catholic-Jewish mix - can safely be entrusted to Messer’s ‘Disney’ and ‘McDonald’.

These tendencies provide the best explanation for the failure of history to ‘end’ with the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989-91 and the persistent instability of the post-Cold War world - the most spectacular symptom of which was the attacks of 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Like it or not, and deny who will but Britain ruled, and made the modern world, and in doing so, changed it for the better.

Not everything he says is wrong though... nationalists always try to prevent debate like we have seen just recently (at the Bilgi University). Debate is nothing to be feared of.Perhaps there is hope for Turkey after all - hope given that the university debate took place at all and now that a Turkish forumer can argue that debating the issue is a good thing. :)

I'm always for debate and I'm definitely not a nationalist.. (and you won't hear me talking about our "noble blood" or crap like that lol!)

I oppose not only Turkish nationalism, but nationalism worldwide.

BTW these unbiased articles are definitely worth reading http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/anatolia1915.html

http://www.armenianreality.com/armenian_terror/mccarthy.htm

Professor McCarthy: Armenian genocide is British propaganda



Renown U.S. historian and expert on Ottoman affairs, Professor Justin McCarthy said allegations of Armenian genocide are British propaganda




Professor Justin McCarthy, speaking at a conference in London, said that a source known as the "Blue Book" chosen by Armenians to prove their claims of genocide is one of the products of British war propaganda bureau's efforts of misinformation during first world war.



The Blue Book written by Viscount Bryce and Arnold Toynbee has been used as proof that Armenians and the victims of the Jewish Holocaust suffered the same fate in history. This book has been said to be a product of British intelligence designed to promote and promulgate lies during World War I. Britain had set up the war propaganda bureau at Wellington House for the sole purpose of promoting lies and misinformation on Germany and the Ottoman Empire. The British were in full co-operation with American missionaries in Anatolia and the American Embassy in Istanbul conjured a so called Armenian genocide based on gossip, hear-say and erroneous information.
The real purpose behind this exercise was to create and strengthen an image in the minds of British military officers that the Turk were evil, horrible and untrustworthy McCarthy adds.

PROFESSOR JUSTIN MCCARTHY...

HISTORIAN AND EXPERT ON OTTOMAN AFFAIRS
All documents at the Wellington House where the British carried out their propaganda were destroyed when the war ended. One document that survived, however, was the Blue Book (it is documented that many more of these books were published and copied for other countries). This book is currently being used around the world as a legal document on the genocide.

AMERICAN HISTORIAN PROVES THE FACTS
The American historian and expert on Ottoman affairs was a recent speaker at the London School of Oriental and African Studies. He commented on a few of the stomach churning activities of the British during the first world war. He stated, When the war began, a secret propaganda unit was set up at Wellington House, London (on September 2, 1914). This units sole aim was to provide support for Britain, smear Britains enemies, obtain support for the British view through the use of Americans, and to keep British morale high during the war. This unit was headed by Charles Masterman a Liberal m.p. He was a close friend of Lloyd George. There also was an American intellectual named Viscount Bryce working in this bureau who had many influential friends in the U.S. Arnold Toynbee, young historian, meanwhile was one of Bryces close friends at the time.

SEVEN MILLION DOCUMENTS
At the end of the war all documents and records of work at the war propaganda bureau were destroyed, and its existence was only admitted in 1935. However, the sources of the propaganda bureau were discovered due to one records book surviving until present day. Publications prepared in this bureau and the existence of seven million documents which were very efficiently sent to the United States after the war were also exposed. Many famous authors of the time as Arnold Bennett and John Buchan were also employed by the Wellington House, where they published brochures, books and statements for the war effort.

GERMANY, THE ACTUAL TARGET
Although Germany was the actual target of activities at Wellington House, the Ottoman Empire, having sided with Germany during the war received its fair share of false propaganda. No matter how sympathetic the British officers felt towards their Turkish compatriots, the image that Turkish officers were bad, evil and untrustworthy was strengthened by such slanderous data.

NON-REAL NAMES
Work carried out by those at Wellington House on Ottomans involved many so called authors and writers whose existence could not be verified and thus, the information remains unconfirmed. For example, there was apparently a Syrian member of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress Party, named Faiz whose memoirs are mentioned in publications of the Wellington House. This persons existence is totally make-belief and his statements on Talat Pasha, a complete fallacy since he never existed. Wellington House also proves the close co-operation which existed between them and the American diplomats and missionaries based in Turkey during that time. Since it is documented that these groups were close to the Armenians in Turkey, their so called information from Turkey is a total fabrication.

BLUE BOOK ORDERED BY LLOYD GEORGE
Public law and order was severely disrupted as a result of Armenians revolting against Ottoman authority in eastern Anatolia, which led Bryce and Toynbee to concoct material to document alleged atrocities committed by Ottomans. Lloyd George asked to collect these documents in the Blue Book. This document was later submitted to the British parliament and has since been used as a classic documentation by radical nationalist Armenian groups.

TOYNBEE WAS AN ANTI-TURK
It is thought that Toynbee believed in the authenticity and truthfulness of material received from American missionaries in Anatolia. However, he also added some spice to these imaginary stories, since it was his country that was at war with Turkey and he thought it would be right to lie in his reports. As was proved in his late career, Toynbee was indeed an avid Turk hater, but was too far away from the events of eastern Turkey in 1916 to document anything.
It is easy to see far away from such events Armenians living in Turkey were and in looking at Toynbees data. Toynbee also seems to have exaggerated their relıabılıty for they turned and fought against their former protector for promises made by outsiders. For example so many anecdotes mentioned by western observers are not by western travelers but by a local Armenians travelling only short distances. One tenth of the anecdotes do not even have a source of any kind. Other sources are generally hearsay and have no witnesses who can attest to the so called crimes.

NO REACTIONS FROM TURKEY
All propaganda against Germany by Wellington House has been forgotten, yet unfortunately Bryce - Toynbee documents have been recognized as true in Britain and U.S. These documents have always been used by radical militant Armenians to pursue their goals. There is no information at hand about whether Turkey has shown any reactions against the impact of these documents. The mentioned Blue Book has been published more then once. Ara Sarafian who is to publish the book for the third time does not mention the fact that the books contents were prepared at Wellington House and that its sources are untrustworthy. Thus, propaganda carried out by the British during World War I continues to spread its venom against all Turkish people living around the world.



The information in this web site is taken from NTVMSNBC.com

The Armenian Issue Revisited
Anatolia 1915:Turks Died, Too By Justin McCarthy
Published in the Boston Globe, April 25, 1998

During World War 1, Anatolia, the Asiatic section of modern Turkey, was the scene of horrible acts of inhumanity between Armenians and Turks. For many decades, the history of the conflict between the Turks and the Armenians has primarily been written from the viewpoint of the Armenians. It is a viewpoint that emphasizes the deaths of Armenians but completely ignores the deaths of Turks.

The Armenian position has been effectively publicized. Every year in Congress, a group of representatives attempts to pass a bill that says the Turks were guilty of genocide. Newspapers feature articles on events in Turkey in 1915 as if they were today's news. Over the weekend, the Public Broadcasting System carried the historical visions of Armenian producers all across the country.

Unfortunately, effective publicity does not ensure accurate history. What has been presented as truth is, in fact, only one side of a complicated history that began more than 100 years before World War 1.
Lands occupied one by one
In the late 1700s, Russia embarked on the conquest of all the peoples around it. Those who stood in the way of expansion to the south were Turks and other Moslems. One by one, their lands were occupied by the Russians. In the Crimea and in the Caucasus region, the Moslems were forced to emigrate. Those who resisted, especially in the Caucasus, were slaughtered. The czar wished to have a loyal population in the new lands. Therefore, Russians and other Slavs were imported into lands newly emptied of their Moslem inhabitants.

It was not possible to populate all of the conquered lands with Slavs. The Russian population was hard pressed even in filling the more northerly lands. A different policy had to be adopted south of the Caucasus Mountains.

The Russians took the southern Caucasus region from two Moslem powers Persia and the Ottoman Empire. They had reason to fear that the Turks in the provinces that bordered the Ottoman Empire would rebel against their rule. To meet the threat, they adopted native Christians as their proxies. The Armenians, who were scattered throughout the Caucasus and in Anatolia and Persia, were to be used much as the Slavs had been used farther north, as a Christian group that would replace expelled Moslem Turks.

The Russians could promise many benefits to the Armenians. Those who sided with the Russians could hope for better economic conditions as part of a European empire. Like other Middle Eastern peoples, the primary identification of the Armenians was religious. They were convinced of the superiority and ultimate triumph of their Christian faith, and the opportunity to side with a great Christian power was seductive. Perhaps later there would be a chance for independence.

Armenian cooperation with the Russians began when Armenian armed units assisted the invading armies of Peter the Great and acted as spies against their Moslem rulers. Armenians were subsequently to become Russian soldiers and even generals who lead the Russian conquests.

The best example of the effects of Russian Armenian cooperation was seen in the province of Erivan (today the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic). Before the Russian invasion of Erivan, the majority of the population was Moslem. As the Russians defeated the Turks and Persians in 1827 29, 30 percent of the Moslems of Erivan either died or emigrated. They were replaced with greater numbers of Armenians from Anatolia and Persia. Many more Armenians came to Erivan in the years to come, creating what today is Armenia.

Exchange continued for a century
The exchange of Armenian and Turkish populations continued for a century. With each war between the Russians and the Ottomans, more Moslems died, more fled, and more Armenians came. By 1922, more than 1 1/2 million Moslems had emigrated from the conquered lands.

In the late 19th century, Armenian revolutionary movements sprang up in the Ottoman Empire. They sought to create an independent Armenia in eastern Anatolia, in lands that were three quarters Moslem in population. The Russians gave their support whenever they felt they could use the revolutionaries.

After unsuccessful bloody uprisings in 1895 and 1909, the revolutionaries' chance came in 1914, when Russia went to war with the Ottoman Empire. Armenian rebellions broke out all over the empire, and Russian arms and even Russian uniforms appeared from hidden caches. Tens of thousands of Armenians formed themselves into guerrilla bands. The largest city of southeastern Anatolia, Van, was captured by the Armenian rebels in April 1915, and many Moslems in the city and surrounding villages were killed. The city was held until it could be turned over to the invading Russian army. Throughout eastern Anatolia, Armenian bands attacked villagers wherever they found them. In turn, Turks and especially Kurdish tribesmen attacked Armenian villages. It was the beginning of a bloody war.

For five years, Armenian peasants and the Russian army battled Turkish peasants and the Ottoman army. Most of the peasants undoubtedly wanted no part of the fighting but were forced by circumstances to take sides. Starvation and epidemic disease killed many times more people than bullets or knives did.

Because of the rebellion, the Ottoman government decided that it could not trust the Armenians. Orders went out to deport all Armenians from dangerous areas. The Ottomans, who were fighting a Russian invasion and vainly trying to defend Moslem villages from Armenian guerrillas, spared few soldiers to defend the columns of Armenian refugees moving to Syria. Many of the columns were attacked and many Armenians were robbed and killed by Kurdish tribes or corrupt officials. However, to put the suffering of Armenian refugees into perspective, twice as many Moslems as Armenians were forced from their homes because of attacks by Russian soldiers and Armenian guerrillas.

When the Russian Revolution destroyed the czar's power in Anatolia, a new Armenian Republic attempted to hold the territory that the Russians had conquered. They were defeated by the Turks, and as the Armenians retreated, they killed the Turks who fell into their hands. Cities such as Erzincan were left in ruins, with Turkish bodies filling the streets. Armenians who failed to escape with their retreating army were killed as well.

In Erivan and other parts of the Caucasus under the control of the Armenian Republic, Turkish villages were destroyed. and the inhabitants were forced to flee or die. Two thirds of the Moslems who had lived in the province of Erivan in 1914 were gone at war's end. A similar fate met Armenians in Turkish Azerbaijan.

In the end, almost 600,000 of the Anatolian Armenians had died. Almost 3 million Anatolian Moslems had died, more than one third of them in eastern Anatolia. Mortality in the Caucasus was similarly proportioned.

Why one-sided?
Why have we in the West formed such a one sided view of the Armenian question? It is a matter of sources and prejudice.

The events of World War I in Turkey were seen in the West only through the eyes of American missionaries and Armenian propagandists. American Protestant missionaries had worked extensively with Armenians and had been instrumental in creating Armenian nationalism. The missionaries reported the murders of Armenians by Turks. They did not report the murders of Turks by Armenians that were occurring at the same time. Their reports were collected by the US ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, who disseminated them. Morgenthau believed that the Turks were an inferior race and openly printed his view that Turks had "inferior blood." It is no wonder that his observations were colored by his prejudices. Yet it is his reports and the reports of others like him that have formed our histories.

If it seems odd that Americans of that time were so deeply prejudiced, we should reflect on the general attitude of our ancestors toward non Europeans and non-Christians. Asiatics and Africans were routinely described as inherently inferior to Europeans and Americans. Respect for and knowledge of non-Christian religions and peoples was virtually nonexistent.

Only in recent years have scholars begun to examine other evidence. There are Ottoman military records that tell of massacres of Turks and Kurds by Armenians, eyewitness accounts by Russian military men of Armenian atrocities against Turks, evidence of Americans who saw the destruction of the Ottoman East by Armenians. Most important, there is demographic evidence that tells us, for example, that 60 percent of the Moslems of the province of Van, where the Armenians began their rebellion, died in war. Such evidence belies claims of a one sided massacre. It does very accurately describe an awful war, one in which both sides were heroes and both sides were villains.

Those who bring forth such evidence are often vilified as unobjective and pro Turkish. But is it less than objective to state that both Turks and Armenians were killers and that both were victims? Can such be called a pro Turkish view?

Unfortunately, we have not yet reached a time when the Armenian-Turkish conflict is studied as we would study any other historical event.

A search is on
Today, a search is on for proof that the Ottoman government ordered genocide for the Armenians. What has appeared so far would be unacceptable in any other historical inquiry such as a few telegrams in poorly forged handwriting produced by an Armenian and entered in no telegraph records; reports from trials in which no objective evidence was produced and the accused were not allowed to defend themselves. Evidence that indicates the Ottomans intended no genocide is, like the deaths of the Turks, ignored. Yet the accusations will continue as long as nationalist sentiment guides the studies.

It would be better, I believe, to approach the Armenian-Turkish conflict as a study of the sufferings of the Armenians and the Turks. The nationalist feelings of today, whether Armenian or Turkish, have no place in the study. We should examine the fate of the millions who died in Russia's expansions efforts and consider the effects of revolutionary movements that pursued an ideal over the bodies of their own people and of others. We should study what occurs when a government is too weak to defend its people. The important questions are human questions, not national questions.

On April 24 of ever year, Armenians gather to remember their dead. They grieve for lost family and the lost homes of their grandfathers, as is proper. It should be remembered that Turks, too, grieve for their dead.

It's a good move by the EU.

I'm always for debate and I'm definitely not a nationalist.. (and you won't hear me talking about our "noble blood" or crap like that lol!)

BTW these unbiased articles are definitely worth reading http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/anatolia1915.html

http://www.armenianreality.com/armenian_terror/mccarthy.htm

Do you really consider this site to be unbiased...

http://www.armenianreality.com/images/drip-blo.gif
http://www.armenianreality.com/images/banner4.gif
http://www.armenianreality.com/

...or are you being sarcastic???

I'm always for debate and I'm definitely not a nationalist.. (and you won't hear me talking about our "noble blood" or crap like that lol!)

I oppose not only Turkish nationalism, but nationalism worldwide.

BTW these unbiased articles are definitely worth reading http://www.ataa.org/ataa/ref/armenian/anatolia1915.html

http://www.armenianreality.com/armenian_terror/mccarthy.htmYou do realise that these websites are hosted by Turkish political organisations don't you? Are you sure you can call them "unbiased"? I quote:

"At Armenian Reality, we know that knowledge will expand only by sharing. So, please note that anybody wishing to refer to our web pages is totally free to do it. The truth will prevail and the Armenian lies will be thrown away at the garbage bin of the history"

It's NOT a Turkish site.

People like Prof. McCarthy (among others) are HIGHLY respected historians worldwide.

The first one is ATAA (Assembly of Turkish American Associations). The second one has this foreword:

"At Armenian Reality, we know that knowledge will expand only by sharing. So, please note that anybody wishing to refer to our web pages is totally free to do it. The truth will prevail and the Armenian lies will be thrown away at the garbage bin of the history"

The whole purpose of the second website is to present the Turkish view of the period and to oppose "Armenian lies".

"At Armenian Reality, we know that knowledge will expand only by sharing. So, please note that anybody wishing to refer to our web pages is totally free to do it. The truth will prevail and the Armenian lies will be thrown away at the garbage bin of the history"
This is what the man believes. There are enough other foreign historians who believe that it was a tragic bloody event resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Turks, they clearly say this is not genocide..

What makes you think that this site is not trustworthy, please explain.. I think I'm missing someting :)

It's a bit like me calling these websites unbiased:
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
http://www.cilicia.com/armo10.html
http://www.theforgotten.org/intro.html
http://www.genocide1915.info/

edit

It's NOT a Turkish site.

People like Prof. McCarthy (among others) are HIGHLY respected historians worldwide.

Yeah, according to... ArmenianReality

If you search for McCarthy on the internet you will find out that this highly respected world renowned journalist is basically only being quoted by Turkish sites. ;)

However, you can also find an interesting notion of him on wikipedia:

Justin McCarthys figures are often referred in various works, more particularly works which are considered by some to be supporting the Turkish government theses that the Armenian massacres do not constitute genocide.
Even though professor Justin McCarthy is a Western academic, his numbers of Armenian casualties are derived from his statistics of Armenian population which in their turn were derived from Ottoman record(by applying correction values), therefore, some scholars considers them Ottoman sources rather than a Western one. The way he proceeded is to subtract from his figures of Armenian population, the figure he calculated as survivors. And came to a little less than 600,000 as Armenian casualties for the period 1914 to 1922.[6] But as in the cases of his population his statistics are controversial. In a more recent essay of his, he project that if the Armenian records of 1913 were accurate, 250,000 more deaths should be added,[7] for a total of 850,000. McCarthy figures as well doesn't include the Armenian population losses from the Russian Armenia lands loss in the profit of the Ottoman Empire, and he is as well criticized of overestimating the survivor table. Frédéric Paulin goes as far as comparing his methodology with Rassiniers method in calculating the European Jewry losses during World War II.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Armenian_casualties#Justin_McCarthy_estimates

Hi monkey,
I am from Turkey and i am jewish by nation but Islam by religion.I think you know why many jews came to Turkey from Spain in 1400,Because Turks were tolerating to others.
Now about the so called "GENOCIDE" of Armenians,In my opinion Turkey does not denying anything,I think what Turkey insists is that the claimers of the so called genocide does not have any evidence but they rely on emitional lobbying.
Dear Monkey,I believe that you are an educated man and You live in one of the most developed country on Earth,You are a citizen of Western culture and Human Right is important for you.Your country unlike some backwarded
dictotorships gives value to REASON and JUSTICE.In your view Justice should not be tempered with the plenty of money neither strong lobbies should keep the justice under their monopoly.
I am a Jewish Turk but before that i am an Human with a good education background, I have been taught to use my reason and mind before give my opinion.As an example, my opinion on Liverpool soccer club wont base on their rival's unsupported claims,even thought they(rivals) may have more strong voice.
I "BELIEVE" you do use your reason and logic too before you make your mind.
You believe genocide is fact and your opinion is that Ottoman Turks systematicly killed Armenian citizens in Turkey.Could you please give me the EVIDENCES and Your REASON why do you believe in this way?
I dont think you believe in genocide because of majority believe so,Majority of the Americans believe creatonist view in the book of Genesis but this does not mean that we should also accept the book of Genesis and creatonist view.
Last thing i would like to see is evengelists going after my son and me just because We dont believe the way they believe and they are in majority.

peace.

P.S Sorry for my english, I speak good English but my writing skill is not very good.

Ozcan, come on man, those sites are not unbiased, it's as clear as day.

Yeah, according to... ArmenianReality

If you search for McCarthy on the internet you will find out that this highly respected world renowned journalist is basically only being quoted by Turkish sites. ;)

However, you can also find an interesting notion of him on wikipedia:

Justin McCarthys figures are often referred in various works, more particularly works which are considered by some to be supporting the Turkish government theses that the Armenian massacres do not constitute genocide.
Even though professor Justin McCarthy is a Western academic, his numbers of Armenian casualties are derived from his statistics of Armenian population which in their turn were derived from Ottoman record(by applying correction values), therefore, some scholars considers them Ottoman sources rather than a Western one. The way he proceeded is to subtract from his figures of Armenian population, the figure he calculated as survivors. And came to a little less than 600,000 as Armenian casualties for the period 1914 to 1922.[6] But as in the cases of his population his statistics are controversial. In a more recent essay of his, he project that if the Armenian records of 1913 were accurate, 250,000 more deaths should be added,[7] for a total of 850,000. McCarthy figures as well doesn't include the Armenian population losses from the Russian Armenia lands loss in the profit of the Ottoman Empire, and he is as well criticized of overestimating the survivor table. Frédéric Paulin goes as far as comparing his methodology with Rassiniers method in calculating the European Jewry losses during World War II.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Armenian_casualties#Justin_McCarthy_estimates
What are then dependable sites? Please give me links and tell me why those sites should be trustworthy?

Ozcan, come on man, those sites are not unbiased, it's as clear as day.
Shiro, I apologize if that's the case.. I've taken a strong sleeping pill and also feel sick today.. I'm going to bed, because I notice that my brains aren't working properly right now :ohno:

Good Night, oh and please give me reliable sites :)

Hi empirebuilder

This looks like an attempt to provide an unbiased history. I suspect it was written by neither a Turk nor an Armenian. It covers the views of both sides and is very careful with language:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

wikipedia? everybody puts his/her info on that site, don't they?

Yeah, but it's much more structured than you would assume.
Wikipedia is great.


Note the countries and orginisations who recognize the Armenian Genocide.

In every war, people die from both sides. This should explain the situation.

Countries recognizing an Armenian genocide, include: Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Vatican City and Venezuela.

I'm surprised Ukraine isn't in the list. I'm sure it did recognize it. There are annual demonstrations of Armenians in Ukraine, remembering it.

Did you personally make a deep research on what happened during those years?? Or are you just following some people who think it was genocide. I think, Turkey has already accepted to open the facts and debate the issue. How about the countries who accept the so called genocide? Did they attempt to dig into the issue before accepting it?? Or is this a political game?


Countries recognizing an Armenian genocide, include: Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Vatican City and Venezuela.

I'm surprised Ukraine isn't in the list. I'm sure it did recognize it. There are annual demonstrations of Armenians in Ukraine, remembering it.

Are you saying that Armenians made this genocide up, as a joke, or to piss of Turks?

Did you personally make a deep research on what happened during those years??

Did you?

Or are you just following some people who think it was genocide.

Are you just following some people who think it wasn't?

I think, Turkey has already accepted to open the facts and debate the issue.

Finally, after a very long time, and against much opposition, yes. And it's a very good thing I think. A good step forward.

How about the countries who accept the so called genocide? Did they attempt to dig into the issue before accepting it?? Or is this a political game?

Isn't everything political?

And did Turkish people do enough research before rejecting it?


See, everything is subjective. The whole thing is pretty stupid. Opening up talks is a great step forward. Hoping the truth, whatever it may be will be revealed. Because no matter how much all of us guess, read, assume, deny, reject, none of us really know. None of us were there. We only go by what we know and read, which does point to a genocide, but there is no real way for any of us to know for sure..... alot of times things are somewhere in between the two extremes.


And as for the topic, I am quite shocked the EU put this out there, there was a slim chance before, now I think it is almost zero Turkey will join.

Are you saying that Armenians made this genocide up, as a joke, or to piss of Turks?

Armenians do alot of jokes to us... killing 54 foreign Turkish diplomats is just one of them for example...

@Christos,

We are not lemmings... we ofcourse did researches by ourselves and all of them showes that there were no systematetical killings aimed to wipe out an entire race... I will never accept this absurd lie... even if my country accepts it in the future(which will never happen though)...

This is where we stand... I hope EU will put more ridiculuos things in front of us so that we will end this EU bullshit...

This is my only reply to this thread...

We are not lemmings... we ofcourse did researches by ourselves and all of them showes that there were no systematetical killings aimed to wipe out an entire race... I will never accept this absurd lie... even if my country accepts it in the future(which will never happen though)...

And your research was better than the research of:

Argentina
Belgium
Cyprus
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
The Netherlands
Lebanon
Poland
Russia
Slovakia
Sweden
Switzerland
Uruguay
Vatican City
Venezuela
European Parliament
Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly
United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
The majority of US states
The Canadian House of Commons
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
The Association of Genocide Scholars
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
World Council of Churches
The Turkish Human Right Organization
The League for Human Rights
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
Ragip Zarakolu
Ali Ertem
Taner Akçam
Halil Berktay
Orhan Pamuk
and many many others



???

And your research was better than the research of:

Argentina
Belgium
Cyprus
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
The Netherlands
Lebanon
Poland
Russia
Slovakia
Sweden
Switzerland
Uruguay
Vatican City
Venezuela
European Parliament
Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly
United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
The majority of US states
The Canadian House of Commons
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
The Association of Genocide Scholars
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
World Council of Churches
The Turkish Human Right Organization
The League for Human Rights
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
Ragip Zarakolu
Ali Ertem
Taner Akçam
Halil Berktay
Orhan Pamuk
and many many others



???

Well if you repeat a lie too many times, people will start to believe it...

Do you want me to list the countries and organizations that believed in the ''weapons of mass destrustion" propoganda of US government? It's more than your little list...

Plus i won't believe to something just because that the Argentinian government and the Vatican City(!) said so! These are all politics and bullshit...

I will believe it if Armenians come to us with facts! Proofs... Show us what you got! We opened them our archives and invited their historians... What more do you want us to do? Bend over and get ready for a penetration?!

Do you want me to list the countries and organizations that believed in the ''weapons of mass destrustion" propoganda of US government? It's more than your little list...
No it's not.
Noone really believed that but Blair and I doubt he even did seriously...



Plus i won't believe to something just because that the Argentinian government and the Vatican City(!) said so! These are all politics and bullshit...

I will believe it if Armenians come to us with facts! Proofs... Show us what you got! We opened them our archives and invited their historians... What more do you want us to do? Bend over and get ready for a penetration?!
I think you have quite the nerve to say this about the EU, the UN and literally all modern western democracies.
There all in it just to spite Turkey right...

You are in denial...

No it's not.
Noone really believed that but Blair and I doubt he even did seriously...




I think you have quite the nerve to say this about the EU, the UN and literally all modern western democracies.
There all in it just to spite Turkey right...

You are in denial...

Half of the EU countries(Britain,Italy,Spain, Poland etc) were supportive for Iraqi war, how you forget that easily? Poor France and Germany... They were almost being raped because of their resistance against the US government.

and how do you know that Argentinian government really believed that the genocide took place or maybe it was the Armenian lobby which helped them believe?

I'm in not denial, i'm in hunger for evidence?

Feed me with facts, not political bullshit... That we see everyday...

Hi Monkey,
Thank you for the link, I did read that article before. I thing some people have issues with Turkey here and they are not using same standards when the subject is about Turkey’s interests. I will write about wikipedia article but before doing that I would like to share some of my thoughts with you about so-called genocide.
I think we should ask to ourselves some questions here, such as
1) What is genocide
2) Did Turkey commit any genocide against the Armenians? Are there evidences out there?
3) Can Republic of Turkey be count responsible for the account of the genocide

Question 1)
Genocide: is the systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicty, religion, political opinion, social status or other particularity. First time term genocide coined was in 1943 by a jewish legal scholar,It was used for the Nazis.
Above explanation of genocide can actually be use for many Western Nations actions before 1943.
Systematic killings of Native Indians by British colaniers,Inkas by Spanish Conquerors,
Etc., We could even add Catholics killing the Protestants and Christian Romans killing the Pagan German tribes in this list. I think no Nation on this Earth can claim to be innocent according to explanation given above. But the question bothers me is why Turkey only? Why not to include all the Western countries involved in colonisations and systematic ethnic cleanings? I really hope you have no objection against the explanation of genocide above dear Monkey, it is not my own explanation but taking from the International Criminal Court .We as a civilized people should try to play with the rules and don’t ignore them.
I think you would agree with me if I say, it is yet another double standard policy of Christian conservatives against to Turkey in Europe, as you know Turkey had to deal with this double standard on the issue of Cyprus referendum as well. Even thought Turkey agreed with United Nations plan supported also by European Union, it was Greek side that went against to will of the European Union. Anti-Turkish lobby in Europe has succeeded to turn this issue against Turkey too.

Regarding to Question 2;
I am going to ask an another question to make things little clear here. Why the Nations of Alliances needed to have court in Nuremberg for Nazi atrocities after the War? After all they were the winners and they had enough proof to put Nazis in jails. But why they did still spend their time in the Nuremberg court? Because, I think they were following the legal ways and bringing there proofs and evidences to attention of the court in Nuremberg. They were civilized and following a civilized way. What about why the Armenians cannot bring their evidences in to Human Right courts and sue Turkey in These courts? It would give them more advantage and support. I mean everybody Knows that the strong lobby groups can affect politicians and strong lobbying can alter their voting. But independent courts are different, people respect them more then the politicians.
Reason why there won’t be any Nuremberg style court for the Armenian claims is that because original documents of the Armenian claims does not exists. Imagine a court trying to make decision without any original documents but going with the “ he said, he said not” style arguments, even you would not recognize any court decision against to yourselves without the original documents. Think about your neighbour trying to accuse you with animal cruelty without any reasonable evidence and original documents, He is keep telling other neighbours and affecting them with emotional pressure. He has picture of you with his pet when he attacked you and when you kicked him. He totally ignores the context of the picture when he shows that picture to your neighbours, you admit that there were some problems between you and his pet and there were tough times. But you were not after his pet deliberately and you were not cruel to animals.
You just wish others to take this issue in its context, He wants to change neighbours opinion about you and put some pressure on you, He does not want to face you in the court because not enough evidence. What would be your reaction dear Monkey?
Would you think it is fair to admit something because majority of the neighbours do think that you were cruel to his pet by deliberately? Please think also that some of the neighbours have their own agendas against you anyway. Would you admit what they want you to admit or solve this problem in the court?

Regarding to question number 3

The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world." David E. Standard

By then [1891] the native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated.... Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law." Peter Montague 1

The British occupied areas from Virginia northward. Hans Koning wrote: "From the beginning, the Spaniards saw the native Americans as natural slaves, beasts of burden, part of the loot. When working them to death was more economical than treating them somewhat humanely, they worked them to death. The English, on the other hand, had no use for the native peoples. They saw them as devil worshippers, savages who were beyond salvation by the church, and exterminating them increasingly became accepted policy." 5 David E. Stannard wrote: "Hundreds of Indians were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Other hundreds were killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunted down by dogs, 'blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives [mastiffs] to seize them.' Their canoes and fishing weirs were smashed, their villages and agricultural fields burned to the ground. Indian peace offers were accepted by the English only until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulled the natives into false security, the colonists returned to the attack. It was the colonists' expressed desire that the Indians be exterminated, rooted 'out from being longer a people upon the face of the earth.' In a single raid the settlers destroyed corn sufficient to feed four thousand people for a year. Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming the preferred British approach to dealing with the natives." 4
Dear Monkey, I do not expect your country, England to be count responsible for the atrocities of British Empires to Native Indians. I don’t even think that Native people can sue England for the atrocities. Just like Republic of Turkey cannot be responsible for the Ottoman atrocities. At the end of the Ottomans everybody suffered even Turks themselves as well.
Regarding to wikipedia , I would kindly recommend you Guenter Lewy’s, He has some good evidences and arguments against the claims of Armenian lobbies. He
Wrote book about Nazi genocide against to gypsies and I have that book. Here you can read his arguments against the Armenian claims. He has nothing to do with government of Turkey.

http://www.meforum.org/article/748

Peace

And your research was better than the research of:

Argentina
Belgium
Cyprus
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
The Netherlands
Lebanon
Poland
Russia
Slovakia
Sweden
Switzerland
Uruguay
Vatican City
Venezuela
European Parliament
Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly
United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
The majority of US states
The Canadian House of Commons
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
The Association of Genocide Scholars
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
World Council of Churches
The Turkish Human Right Organization
The League for Human Rights
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
Ragip Zarakolu
Ali Ertem
Taner Akçam
Halil Berktay
Orhan Pamuk
and many many others



???

Hi shiro,
Majority of the Countries in that list did not come to conclusion because of the researches, They were affected by the strong Armenian Lobbies .EU parliament and countries in the European Union has their own agendas.
Please read Guenter Lewy's research. He has a book about genocide against the Gypsies by Nazis and He is a well-known European born researcher. He does refute Ragip Zarakolu and others as well in that list.
Would you really care if the Parliament of Turkey issues resolution for the genocide against the people of Tahiti by Government of France? Nuclear Testing
In Tahiti was really bad don’t you think? Would recognizing the Spain's genocide of Latin American people by Turkish assembly affect view of Spanish man on the street?

Peace

empirebuilder thank you for the great sum up of our feelings...

It is useless to discuss the Armenian issue, simply because many of the forumers have never read a book on the subject... And if I am not mistaken, there are no historians here:) Many historians, like Bernard Lewis, have been harrassed because they saw these events as massacres not genocide. Armenians tend to forget some important facts; their war crimes, like General Dro and that thousands of muslims were killed as revenge which was equal in deiltry to what the Ittihadis did. I know you won't listen because I am a simple soul surrounded by highly respected historians :)

This thread is the perfect example of why Turkey should not become an EU member.

It is useless to discuss the Armenian issue, simply because many of the forumers have never read a book on the subject... And if I am not mistaken, there are no historians here:) Many historians, like Bernard Lewis, have been harrassed because they saw these events as massacres not genocide. Armenians tend to forget some important facts; their war crimes, like General Dro and that thousands of muslims were killed as revenge which was equal in deiltry to what the Ittihadis did. I know you won't listen because I am a simple soul surrounded by highly respected historians :)

Oh, and because you've read one book by somebody who claims that the genocide never happened, you're somehow an expert on the subject? If I read a holocaust denial book, it wouldn't mean that I somehow had a stronger case than other forumers, now would it?

hey , what a bullshit this stuation is...what can we do now ,even our grand-grand-dads wrote this stupid genocide story ?...and i dont have any idea if something like an armenian genocide has ever been....and i dont care either...
lets dig the graves of people who had done that ( if they really did) and punish 'em ....but not me, because i am not GUILTY...

Does anyone here know about Turks who were slaughtered in massive scale as well? I'm not denying anything, but want to know why that's not being seen as a genocide?

However, I do believe that more Armenians died than Turks.

hey , what a bullshit this stuation is...what can we do now ,even our grand-grand-dads wrote this stupid genocide story ?...and i dont have any idea if something like an armenian genocide has ever been....and i dont care either...
lets dig the graves of people who had done that ( if they really did) and punish 'em ....but not me, because i am not GUILTY...

Then force your government to admit it.

...

I know turkish people in person, I've been in Turkey (Istanbul), I've been studying (on an amateur basis) history, military history and geopolitics and have often dug into turkish-related issues, in fact, I've always been very fond of knowing much about this country and its society and culture.
I am not against the path this country wants to take towards approaching the West, Europe and EU,heck, yes, why not become a EU member provided they play by the rules.

But:
How can this happen when in Turkey, if someone speaks publicly about the Armenian Genocide, is prosecuted? Orhan Pamuk been the latest example. Who? One of the most well known Turks outside Turkey!
So, turkish friends, at least you, who are educated enoough to browse the internet and participate in forums like this, tell me, how can you expect to have a smooth path towards EU when in your country someone can still be prosecuted because of his views?
And the Armenian issue is just an example. If I started to mention at least a couple of other things (1955-does this ring a bell?) then we would definately lock this thread.

So, let's make a start. Europe needs a modern democratic and liberal Turkey, either being a full EU member or not.

What is the Armenian Genocide?

The atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire during W.W.I are called the Armenian Genocide. Genocide is the organized killing of a people for the express purpose of putting an end to their collective existence. Because of its scope, genocide requires central planning and a machinery to implement it. This makes genocide the quintessential state crime as only a government has the resources to carry out such a scheme of destruction. The Armenian Genocide was centrally planned and administered by the Turkish government against the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. It was carried out during W.W.I between the years 1915 and 1918. The Armenian people was subjected to deportation, expropriation, abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation. The great bulk of the Armenian population was forcibly removed from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the vast majority was sent into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. Large numbers of Armenians were methodically massacred throughout the Ottoman Empire. Women and children were abducted and horribly abused. The entire wealth of the Armenian people was expropriated. After only a little more than a year of calm at the end of W.W.I, the atrocities were renewed between 1920 and 1923, and the remaining Armenians were subjected to further massacres and expulsions. In 1915, thirty-three years before UN Genocide Convention was adopted, the Armenian Genocide was condemned by the international community as a crime against humanity.


Who was responsible for the Armenian Genocide?

The decision to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people was made by the political party in power in the Ottoman Empire. This was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (or Ittihad ve Terakki Jemiyeti), popularly known as the Young Turks. Three figures from the CUP controlled the government; Mehmet Talaat, Minister of the Interior in 1915 and Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) in 1917; Ismail Enver, Minister of War; Ahmed Jemal, Minister of the Marine and Military Governor of Syria. This Young Turk triumvirate relied on other members of the CUP appointed to high government posts and assigned to military commands to carry out the Armenian Genocide. In addition to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of the Interior, the Young Turks also relied on a newly-created secret outfit which they manned with convicts and irregular troops, called the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa). Its primary function was the carrying out of the mass slaughter of the deported Armenians. In charge of the Special Organization was Behaeddin Shakir, a medical doctor. Moreover, ideologists such as Zia Gokalp propagandized through the media on behalf of the CUP by promoting Pan-Turanism, the creation of a new empire stretching from Anatolia into Central Asia whose population would be exclusively Turkic. These concepts justified and popularized the secret CUP plans to liquidate the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turk conspirators, other leading figures of the wartime Ottoman government, members of the CUP Central Committee, and many provincial administrators responsible for atrocities against the Armenians were indicted for their crimes at the end of the war. The main culprits evaded justice by fleeing the country. Even so, they were tried in absentia and found guilty of capital crimes. The massacres, expulsions, and further mistreatment of the Armenians between 1920 and 1923 were carried by the Turkish Nationalists, who represented a new political movement opposed to the Young Turks, but who shared a common ideology of ethnic exclusivity.



How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of W.W.I. Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright. Many others died of starvation, exhaustion, and epidemics which ravaged the concentration camps. Among the Armenians living along the periphery of the Ottoman Empire many at first escaped the fate of their countrymen in the central provinces of Turkey. Tens of thousands in the east fled to the Russian border to lead a precarious existence as refugees. The majority of the Armenians in Constantinople, the capital city, were spared deportation. In 1918, however, the Young Turk regime took the war into the Caucasus, where approximately 1,800,000 Armenians lived under Russian dominion. Ottoman forces advancing through East Armenia and Azerbaijan here too engaged in systematic massacres. The expulsions and massacres carried by the Nationalist Turks between 1920 and 1922 added tens of thousands of more victims. By 1923 the entire landmass of Asia Minor and historic West Armenia had been expunged of its Armenian population. The destruction of the Armenian communities in this part of the world was total.


Were there witnesses to the Armenian Genocide?

There were many witnesses to the Armenian Genocide. Although the Young Turk government took precautions and imposed restrictions on reporting and photographing, there were lots of foreigners in the Ottoman Empire who witnessed the deportations. Foremost among them were U.S. diplomatic representatives and American missionaries. They were first to send news to the outside world about the unfolding genocide. Some of their reports made headline news in the American and Western media. Also reporting on the atrocities committed against the Armenians were many German eyewitnesses. The Germans were allies of the Turks in W.W.I. Numerous German officers held important military assignments in the Ottoman Empire. Some among them condoned the Young Turk policy. Others confidentially reported to their superiors in Germany about the slaughter of the Armenian civilian population. Many Russians saw for themselves the devastation wreaked upon the Armenian communities when the Russian Army occupied parts of Anatolia. Many Arabs in Syria where most of the deportees were sent saw for themselves the appalling condition to which the Armenian survivors had been reduced. Lastly, many Turkish officials were witnesses as participants in the Armenian Genocide. A number of them gave testimony under oath during the post-war tribunals convened to try the Young Turk conspirators who organized the Armenian Genocide.


What was the response of the international community to the Armenian Genocide?

The international community condemned the Armenian Genocide. In May 1915, Great Britain, France, and Russia advised the Young Turk leaders that they would be held personally responsible for this crime against humanity. There was a strong public outcry in the United States against the mistreatment of the Armenians. At the end of the war, the Allied victors demanded that the Ottoman government prosecute the Young Turks accused of wartime crimes. Relief efforts were also mounted to save "the starving Armenians." The American, British, and German governments sponsored the preparation of reports on the atrocities and numerous accounts were published. On the other hand, despite the moral outrage of the international community, no strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire either to sanction its brutal policies or to salvage the Armenian people from the grip of extermination. Moreover, no steps were taken to require the postwar Turkish governments to make restitution to the Armenian people for their immense material and human losses.


Why is the Armenian Genocide commemorated on April 24?

On the night of April 24, 1915, the Turkish government placed under arrest over 200 Armenian community leaders in Constantinople. Hundreds more were apprehended soon after. They were all sent to prison in the interior of Anatolia, where most were summarily executed. The Young Turk regime had long been planning the Armenian Genocide and reports of atrocities being committed against the Armenians in the eastern war zones had been filtering in during the first months of 1915. The Ministry of War had already acted on the government's plan by disarming the Armenian recruits in the Ottoman Army, reducing them to labor battalions and working them under conditions equaling slavery. The incapacitation and methodic reduction of the Armenian male population, as well as the summary arrest and execution of the Armenian leadership marked the earliest stages of the Armenian Genocide. These acts were committed under the cover of a news blackout on account of the war and the government proceeded to implement its plans to liquidate the Armenian population with secrecy. Therefore, the Young Turks regime's true intentions went undetected until the arrests of April 24. As the persons seized that night included the most prominent public figures of the Armenian community in the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, everyone was alerted about the dimensions of the policies being entertained and implemented by the Turkish government. Their death presaged the murder of an ancient civilization. April 24 is, therefore, commemorated as the date of the unfolding of the Armenian Genocide.


Are the Armenian massacres acknowledged today as a Genocide according to the United Nations Genocide Convention?


The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes genocide as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." Clearly this definition applies in the case of the atrocities committed against the Armenians. Because the U.N. Convention was adopted in 1948, thirty years after the Armenian Genocide, Armenians worldwide have sought from their respective governments formal acknowledgment of the crimes committed during W.W.I. Countries like France, Argentina, Greece, and Russia, where the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their descendants live, have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide. However, as a matter of policy, the present-day Republic of Turkey adamantly denies that a genocide was committed against the Armenians during W.W.I. Moreover, Turkey dismisses the evidence about the atrocities as mere allegations and regularly obstructs efforts for acknowledgment. Affirming the truth about the Armenian Genocide, therefore, has become an issue of international significance. The recurrence of genocide in the twentieth century has made the reaffirmation of the historic acknowledgment of the criminal mistreatment of the Armenians by Turkey all the more a compelling obligation for the international community.

What about Latvia ?

What's wrong with Latvia? Yes, we experienced genocide from Soviet Union too. Russia has apologised for our some time ago but in Putin times they don't not feel sorry anymore.
Latvians have recognised the sad role of our fighter squads during Revolution in Russia in 1917. But these people acted without mandate of Latvia as state - Latvia appeared on the map in 1918 and did not control their actions. If Russia will ever ask us to say "sorry" for this, am pretty sure that we will say hearty "sorry".

If you refer to citizenship issue - is it that unusual to ask recent immigrants to give some citizenship exams and require some knowledge of local language? We did not have these rights in Soviet times due to occupation, so we do now for all who came here in Soviet time. Nobody is oppressed, just lift your ass and move up to immigration service and bring your papers in order.
Nobody else in the world accuses Latvia about citizenship and other issues besides Russia. There must be reason why enormous country with state-controlled media is bugging its once occupied, small neighbour with large portion of recent Russian emigrants. Think about this a bit.
- - -
Will not comment on EU and Turkey issues, enough said here. But have heard lots of stories from Armenians whom I know, about genocide.

Gatis stick to the thread, Latvia is not an issue here, and Russia is not applying to join EU, if it where I would be the first to open thread about Russian expulsion of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians to Siberia where 2.2 million Baltic ppl perished in Gulags...

Simply Latvia was dragged in this thread as "bad example inside EU" and I had to respond...

A little input of me in here:

I know an Armenian woman (originally from Istanbul) who says that there's never been a genocid against Armenians. She told us that Armenia was besight of Russia. So, there was a war between the Turkish and Armenian-Russian front. This woman is convinced that all the poeple who had died (on both sides!) are caused to death because of the war and not because of any genocid. And she's sure that if the Young Turks had planed a genocid that all Armenians would have died! Otherwise there wouldn't be any Armenians left in this region. But she didn't want to say anything about why Armenians are focusing at "this problem".


My personal opinion:

Nearly every country in Europe has that kind of problem: France especially in Algeria and Africa, Germany in Africa and in WW II, Spain during many periods and any comments about the British Empire and the UK now in Iraq...
So, why focusing on Turkey? Don't we have any other REAL problems?

So, why focusing on Turkey? Don't we have any other REAL problems?

It's simple: Other countries have fessed up to their mistakes, Turkey hasn't.

It's simple: Other countries have fessed up to their mistakes, Turkey hasn't.

Like Spain, the UK or France? Definately not!!! The only country I know is Germany with the genocid against Jews (I can't hear it anymore!) and against the rest of Europe...

i wonder do europeans really care Armenians that much? or they just use them for their interests or as an excuse for stop Turkish EU membership?

if your answer is yes to my first question, so why dont you care Jews, Asians, Native Indians, South Americans, Africans, even Middle easterners?? why dont you open therads about their remembering days, why dont you care them, why do you still deny your reality?

i know the answer. Turks killed innocent christian(which is meaning valuable human race) Armenians and europenas killed just low level humanish creatures.
during the war time many people died! many Armenians died like many Turks died too. maybe the number of Armenians were higher but innocent Turks were human too. at least in our eyes.
i wonder if Armenians were jews, do you care them that much? of course NO. like we have never seen any thread about rememberings of Nazi genocide in DLM. oh wait this has no connection with europe, Nazis are the people who live in Nazistan in the middle asia.

we are all know non-christian(or people who dont come from christian background) people are not actually human in eyes of europeans.

It is true Armenian solders did serve in Imperial Russian Army, they also served Ottoman masters, at least in first year of WW1, but genocide started when Turkey started to suffer major defeats at the hand of Russian Army, of course Turks blamed it on spies and terrorist and they clearly thought it was Armenians who where responsible for Ottoman failures, and as Armenians where Christians (as you know Russia is also Christian country) Turkey sought to eliminate this problem by eliminating Christians from its soil at first, but with invasion of Caucuses they sought to eliminate every single Armenian and Christian, sort of Jihad gone all genocideal if you have it for lack of better word...

Often Ottoman units would push large number of Armenians in to desolate area, be the desert or cold mountains, with no water or supplies, leave them there to die, in many cases this would be long and agonising death, ppl where dieing in there thousands...
Ottoman rule killed about 1.8 million Armenians, out of population of 2.7 million, only reason why not all Armenians weren't killed cose they run away or joined Russian Army... BTW Armenia has population of only 3 million, thanx to Ottomans...

Is Turkey responsible for what ottomans did, yes, they are, in international law, Country takes responsibility of one's historical negligence despite the change of regime or government i.e. political system... Germany paid this in form of losing sovereignty for nearly 50 years, -1945-89, not being able to form army for 10 years after the WW2, and having foreign powers on its soil to this day...

Turkey never faced this harsh measures imagine if it did, Kurdish would now have state of there own, whole of eastern Turkey is basically Kurdistan - about 300 000Sq.km and war reparations to all subject states that became after the fall of Ottoman Rule, this includes Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Saudi, Kuwait, Iraq and so on...

Unfortunately Turkey never faced this issues as it was bankrupt and devastated nation, in my opinion they should have been made to pay for there mistakes....

i wonder do europeans really care Armenians that much? or they just use them for their interests or as an excuse for stop Turkish EU membership?

if your answer is yes to my first question, so why dont you care Jews, Asians, Native Indians, South Americans, Africans, even Middle easterners?? why dont you open therads about their remembering days, why dont you care them, why do you still deny your reality?



Because they are not joining EU, are they?

i wonder if Armenians were jews, do you care them that much? of course NO. like we have never seen any thread about rememberings of Nazi genocide in DLM. oh wait this has no connection with europe, Nazis are the people who live in Nazistan in the middle asia.

:weird: I think you've gone off the deep end now. As a German I'm pretty much reminded about these crimes on a daily basis.

i wonder do europeans really care Armenians that much? or they just use them for their interests or as an excuse for stop Turkish EU membership?

if your answer is yes to my first question, so why dont you care Jews, Asians, Native Indians, South Americans, Africans, even Middle easterners?? why dont you open therads about their remembering days, why dont you care them, why do you still deny your reality?

i know the answer. Turks killed innocent christian(which is meaning valuable human race) Armenians and europenas killed just low level humanish creatures.
during the war time many people died! many Armenians died like many Turks died too. maybe the number of Armenians were higher but innocent Turks were human too. at least in our eyes.
i wonder if Armenians were jews, do you care them that much? of course NO. like we have never seen any thread about rememberings of Nazi genocide in DLM. oh wait this has no connection with europe, Nazis are the people who live in Nazistan in the middle asia.

we are all know non-christian(or people who dont come from christian background) people are not actually human in eyes of europeans.

:rofl: go back to sleep little girl.

i wonder do europeans really care Armenians that much? or they just use them for their interests or as an excuse for stop Turkish EU membership?

if your answer is yes to my first question, so why dont you care Jews, Asians, Native Indians, South Americans, Africans, even Middle easterners?? why dont you open therads about their remembering days, why dont you care them, why do you still deny your reality?

i know the answer. Turks killed innocent christian(which is meaning valuable human race) Armenians and europenas killed just low level humanish creatures.
during the war time many people died! many Armenians died like many Turks died too. maybe the number of Armenians were higher but innocent Turks were human too. at least in our eyes.
i wonder if Armenians were jews, do you care them that much? of course NO. like we have never seen any thread about rememberings of Nazi genocide in DLM. oh wait this has no connection with europe, Nazis are the people who live in Nazistan in the middle asia.

we are all know non-christian(or people who dont come from christian background) people are not actually human in eyes of europeans.


You still don't get it do you?

The holocaust is commemorated in almost every country around the world every year. The Germans have admitted to their actions, arrested war criminals, paid for damages in the hundreds of millions, and apologized for their actions in world war two. That is why there is no need to open threads about this topic! The world has heard Germany's apologies and we move on with the memory and hope that something like this never happens again. What has Turkey done in this regard?

Turkey, not only denies the genocide of Armenians, but they prosecute those in their countyry who dare to speak out about the issue.

This is why these threads open. It is people are in disbelief that a country that wants to join a democratic union does not operate 100% democratically itself.

They will never do this.. just take a look what Turkey do with the Kurdish people!

i wonder if Armenians were jews, do you care them that much? of course NO. like we have never seen any thread about rememberings of Nazi genocide in DLM. oh wait this has no connection with europe, Nazis are the people who live in Nazistan in the middle asia.

we are all know non-christian(or people who dont come from christian background) people are not actually human in eyes of europeans.

While I agree that the Armenian issue is unfortunately used as a political weapon, I find this post very low :ohno:

The idea that non-christians are not humans in the eyes of europeans doesn't deserve to be commented :sleepy:

urban girl, you are spouting absolute crap right now.

perhaps turkey is not as modern as those istanbul pictures would like to show. can't recognize genocide, beat women protestors, ...... imagine all the stuff that you guys keep secret. :ohno:

remind you that some weeks ago an old man was beaten by the swedish police.What about Itlay?Did you forget already forget it?

Sweden some weeks ago
http://www.vg.no/bilder/bildarkiv/1110546701.81275.jpg

http://gfx.dagbladet.no/pub/artikkel/4/42/425/425888/overvaking3.jpg

Italy

http://lmno4p.org/images/3.24-31/zaragoza26_2.jpg

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/133/Genoa7.GIF

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/133/Genoa4.GIF

In addition to that recognising the genocide is not a copenhage creteria!It has nothing to do with the membership of Turkey.It's not the fault of 70 mil people if the government doesn't recognise it.

It's obvious that EU is stricter to Turkey than to other countries!The others were able to join the union more easily and with less pressure.

FYI: the cops in the third to last photo are not wearing italian uniforms. It seems to be the Spanish police...in fact the photo says Zaragoza (a city in Spain).

do we hate germans because they did some shit to us back in the day? does that make the new germans generations subhumans that have to live with our hate ? no.

so grow up , turkish people.


i find this really funny

those types of police-beatings are still disgusting, but men beating up women, well, that is just wrong. ;)

I find the amount of denial in this thread utterly disturbing.

If Turkey doesn't admit to the Armenian Genocide (as well as recognising Cyprus) it cannot be a member of the EU.

WE WON'T BE AN EU MEMBER!

- Case closed.

remind you that some weeks ago an old man was beaten by the swedish police.What about Itlay?Did you forget already forget it?

Sweden some weeks ago
http://www.vg.no/bilder/bildarkiv/1110546701.81275.jpg

http://gfx.dagbladet.no/pub/artikkel/4/42/425/425888/overvaking3.jpg

Italy

http://lmno4p.org/images/3.24-31/zaragoza26_2.jpg

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/133/Genoa7.GIF

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/133/Genoa4.GIF

In addition to that recognising the genocide is not a copenhage creteria!It has nothing to do with the membership of Turkey.It's not the fault of 70 mil people if the government doesn't recognise it.


WOW I'm suprised that Leafy boy missed that great news! OMG!!!

Yes they admitted because they did it. But Turkey-Armenia issue is still under research. Once everything is clear, everybody will accept the facts. So stop saying the same things on and on like a parrot.
Peace!

You still don't get it do you?

The holocaust is commemorated in almost every country around the world every year. The Germans have admitted to their actions, arrested war criminals, paid for damages in the hundreds of millions, and apologized for their actions in world war two. That is why there is no need to open threads about this topic! The world has heard Germany's apologies and we move on with the memory and hope that something like this never happens again. What has Turkey done in this regard?

Turkey, not only denies the genocide of Armenians, but they prosecute those in their countyry who dare to speak out about the issue.

This is why these threads open. It is people are in disbelief that a country that wants to join a democratic union does not operate 100% democratically itself.

remind you that some weeks ago an old man was beaten by the swedish police.What about Itlay?Did you forget already forget it?

Sweden some weeks ago
http://www.vg.no/bilder/bildarkiv/1110546701.81275.jpg

http://gfx.dagbladet.no/pub/artikkel/4/42/425/425888/overvaking3.jpg

Italy

http://lmno4p.org/images/3.24-31/zaragoza26_2.jpg

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/133/Genoa7.GIF

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/133/Genoa4.GIF

In addition to that recognising the genocide is not a copenhage creteria!It has nothing to do with the membership of Turkey.It's not the fault of 70 mil people if the government doesn't recognise it.


Difference being, These Police abused there power to such extent that they going to be prosecuted, depending how far the victim wants to take the case Policeman involved will be:

A) Reprimanded and put on Administrative Duties
B) Fired
C) Prosecuted by State and put in jail
D) prosecuted in Civil action court case, Newspapers and Tabloid might as well do loads of damage, and made to pay substantial fine to the courts and victims, I'm certain when Police department get bill for million or 2 for damages caused by stupid action of few sadistic officers, they'll think twice before letting these officers patrolling the streets, well most likely not...

In any case these police officers will get what they deserve, I don't know if this would be the case in Turkey, would you go far as to prosecute police involved in brutal acts of torture and murder going on all the time all over Turkey...

Turkey might have Democracy, but level of personal freedoms we enjoy here in EU is something you can't even start to comprehend in Turkey, when you do, than Turkey would be more than welcomed in EU, as I said always I would love to see Turkey in EU, but at present Turkey needs to do major reforms, and only than would I support Turkish Entry...

Turkey is run by military and fat generals, whether you agree or not; military involvements in civil jurisprudence and other segments of civil live is at incredible level, such levels of military interference are only seen in military dictatorships and unstable banana republics...



When Turkey completes reforms of judiciary as well as social and political reforms, for which I think should take at least 20 years I would be happy to start negotiations with Turkey in regards to EU entry sometimes in 2027/8...

Not Before...

This is my last post about Turkey in DLM!! I can't believe how ridicilous once can be.We are shown of policemen beating people in europe now you tell us they get fired.I mean after I get beaten by some policemen I don't care if they get fired or not!It's still against human rights it doesn't plya a role if they get fired afterwards or not.Btw all police officers has been fired after beating on kurdish women and this was always the case in Turkey.Now you tell me that Turkey is ruled by fat generals how come that an islmamist party formed the government how come that Turkey wants join the EU?Turkish military has always been anti EU.Did you see the pictures where kurds blocked Istanbul ring roads for several hours and beated turkish people who had turkish flag in their hands destroyed houses,shops and called freedom for Öcalan!What happened?Nothing!!!

After reading such post such as that Turkey is ruled by fat generals I don't see any reason to talk to you about this issue.I see that I'm confronted with people who actually don't have any idea about Turkey's curruent situation!

This has been my last post about Turkey in political threads.There are many other forums with professional people who know what they are talking about!I'll go on these forums not with people who are just anti-Turkey and live in thier own worlds and believe Turkey being controled by genarals.What a joke :D :D :D

edit

Guys you made this place like a war zone, where is the fun now? Lets leave these to the professionals and not talk about the things we have little knowledge please...those people armenians, turks died and some people are politicizing it , well it is disgusting..I wish this matter could be handled between armenians and turks.. what is is it to you especially former colonialists even now invading countries unlawfully, I dont think you have a say in this matter.. If some people wants to say no to turkish membership they should do so and not use dead people in their cause..

Kampflamm, you thin you are very smart don't you? well you immediately think that I read only pro-Turkish books, classical example of prejudice. I do not support the official sance of the government of Turkey, but I won't accept the allegations of genocide until there is evidence and unfortunately here is no evidence. Your country was on trial in Nurnberg, Turkish officials were on trial Malta and were acquited so thre is/was no jdgement which says that Turkey committed genocide. How can people like you say than thatthey are guilty with reading some internet pages. I advise you to read the "objective" www.cilicia.com www.armeniangenocide.com www.genocidedenial.com. The most interesting similaity between those are:

1- 1.5 million Armenians, even some Armenians admit that these numbers are unrealistic
2- Look at thei chronologies; any killings of Turks (of course not because Jews did not kill Germans so saying that we killed Turks and took revenge would hurt us)
3- Mentioning of revolt (what Revolt? Never heard of)
4- They used to use telegram orders by Talat but stopped it after it was proven that they were a fraude
5- Hitler's famous quote, even Germans could not find a proof of it
6- No mentioning at all of their massacres in Azerbaycan
7- The use of term like "Final Solution" "Genocide Denial", do these terms remind you of something?

The point is, There is no single Turkish or Armenian website on the net which is objective. As to books, the same you have the Turkish books and Armenian books and some Western books based on those Armenian books and some other western books, although less, based on the Turkish books. You know science is a cummulation of information so a simple question to you; What happens if the main source of all these books happen to be a fraud....

TURKS HAVE NEVER DENIED THAT THE ARMENIANS WERE MASSACRED!!!

Let the games begin, Assy, Tekir I can use some ammunition here...

But I can be sorry to invade the Constaninople and turning the Hagia Sophia into a mosque..Come and take it loosers.... (Please this is directed to the parrots who have no knowledge about history and blindly sailing with the wind from the media...)

Istanbul is mine, come and take it!
How about Battle of Varna, where we got all your leaders surrendered to tha TURKISH-MUSLIM Sultan..I am so sorry about that too..

How about sloughter of more than 100000 Western European crusaders in Anatolia before reaching to Antioch, thanks to Kilic Arslan..I am SO SORRY, I will never do it again...

and I am sorry being responsible of converting europeans to Islam so there are states in Christian europe who are dominantly MUSLIM....I will never do it again, can you accept me to the eeeyouuu

this list can go on and on man

etc..etc..etc...

:)

I find the amount of denial in this thread utterly disturbing.

If Turkey doesn't admit to the Armenian Genocide (as well as recognising Cyprus) it cannot be a member of the EU.

Hi Shiro,
I am a little disappointed; you are a moderator here and warn people about the "rules”. Yes Shiro 'rules’,’ regulations' that is what I am talking about.
I never seen you banned someone in this forum without using any evidence against him, did you dear Shiro? You did not consider the emotional arguments against the banning of person and those arguments did not affect your decision dear Shiro. This is a very good habit and it shows that you are democratic and fair.
I would like to see same standard from you on this subject too Shiro.
Tell us how does the justice system work in your country dear Shiro? How does your court system deals with the evidences? Do your country parliament’s members voting play important role on the decision of the courts?
Would someone in your country be put into jail without any credible evidence? Would your court system decide on the base of 'what majority believe' or your court take all the evidences carefully and study the case then try to be fair and correct to pass its judgement? Which one of these options is more Democratic and more logical?
Threaten Turkey with something not based on hard evidences itself is a crime and not fair dear Shiro, Threating Turkey with not to receive European Union membership because of this issue is against the logic dear Shiro.
I am a Turkish Muslim Jew, sound oxymoron isn’t? But I have been confront many misconception on this subject too dear Shiro.Turkish Muslims in European media and politic arena at First World War years treaded as stepchildren. You can’t ignore this fact dear Shiro.

As a last words please visit this link below,
http://www.meforum.org/article/748

Author of the link is a German born professor in the University of Massachusetts. He is going to write book about his researches on this issue. He has books about Gypsies in Germany and Religion and Revelation. In that article above link his conclusion is
“The three pillars of the Armenian claim to classify World War I deaths as genocide fail to substantiate the charge that the Young Turk regime intentionally organized the massacres. Other alleged evidence for a premeditated plan of annihilation fares no better”.

“Whether to apply the genocide label to the events that occurred almost one hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire may be of minor consequence to many historians, but it remains of great political relevance. Both Armenian partisans and Turkish nationalists have staked claims and made their case by simplifying a complex historical reality and by ignoring crucial evidence that might yield a more nuanced picture. Professional scholars have based their positions on previous works, often unaware that these represented a bastardized interpretation of the original sources”

Guenter Lewy is not a man of any lobby groups and he bases his conclusions on purely the researches he has done. He does use his Logic and Reason. Emotional pressures from the lobby groups have not affected him. In my opinion there are no strong evidences in the hands of the other group to put pressure on Turkey and You should think about this too dear Shiro. Please do some fair researches and try to understand subject more before give your opinion on it. Don’t let any race, political, religious issues to affect your view on this. Remember many Germans in the Second World War time affected by these factors and treaded Jews unfairly. And you know what dear Shiro? It wasn’t a long time ago; it was just 60 years ago.Lets be honest and follow our own legal and civilized Human justice standards.

Peace

LEAFS FANATIC I think that list can be as big as your hatred against the turks if I just talk about the pardons we have to pay to the Greeks , starting from Romanos Diogenes..

The Armenian Deportations is a historic fact.

The death of 300,000 Ottoman Armenians during WW1 is a historic fact.

The Armenian Genocide is a historic farse.

The death of 1,000,000 Ottoman Armenians during WW1 is a historic farse.

:)

SHIRO yous hould not forget the following:
"Turkey admits the killings but denies the term Genocide, which totally acceptable because there is no scientific evidence which proves the contrary, on the other hand, the Armenian diaspora does not even mention the muslim casualties caused by their gangs/army. So who is the real denier?"
The diaspora is doing their best to make people think that the Ottomans=NAZIs, Armenians=Jews. The interesting thing is, Jews never formed armed forces and attacked civillians in Germany and after the war they never took revenge by cutting elderly people, raping woman, throwing people in wells... You can read these stories in diaries of Russian soldiers, who were the "allies" of the Armenians. So both sides, Armenian and Turkish sides are guilty for these bloody events.

By the way, during the Armenian actions, the Armenians also killed defenseless Jews because they wer loyal to the Ottomans. SO it is shameful that they compare themselves to the Jews.

i have evidences that there has never been a real genocide....look ,there are still armenian people that live around :D

Yeah! let Benedictus form a Crusader Army and wipe those Turks out of history. Then we do not have to worry about Turkish membership :)