24 August 2007
The Jewish community in Turkey has expressed regret over the position adopted by US Jewish groups on the issue of the WWI-era mass murder of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. In a statement published in the Turkish press, the Jewish community leaders emphasized that they supported the official Turkish position that the question should be debated at an academic level, with full access to the archives of all concerned parties, and that parliaments were not the appropriate platforms for finding the truth about historical events. In its statement, Silvio Ovadio, president of the Jewish community in Turkey, said: “We have difficulty in understanding this immediate change of view among some Jewish organizations in the US.” The statement added: “We would like to stress that the news reports that begin with the term “Jews” in local websites may mislead the public, whereas this change in position reflects only the views of some American Jewish organizations.”
Ankara has repeatedly categorically rejected the label “genocide”, saying that both Armenians and Turks died in civil strife when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the Ottoman Empire in 1914/15. The New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) this week reversed its policy by calling the killing of Armenians a genocide, days after it had fired a regional director for taking the same position. The change in the ADL’s position came after weeks of controversy in which critics questioned whether an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism in the world and remembering Holocaust victims could remain credible without acknowledging the Armenian killings as genocide. Another major organization, the American Jewish Committee, took a similar step and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is reportedly considering discussing the matter.
Turkey’s foreign minister Abdullah Gül, who is running for the Turkish presidency, has told Israel’s ambassador in Ankara, Pinhas Avivi, that Turkey was "disappointed" over the stance adopted by the ADL. "We see this statement as an unfortunate one that is unjust to the Holocaust, which has no precedent, and to its victims. And we expect it to be corrected,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. The Israeli embassy has released a statement in which it said that there was "no change" in the Israeli government’s stance regarding the issue. Experts and advisors to the Turkish government held a meeting with diplomats at the foreign ministry in Ankara to determine a strategy aimed at convincing Jewish Americans of their version of history. According to diplomatic sources, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan might try to engage in telephone diplomacy to convince the Jewish leaders in the US to revert to their earlier position on the Armenian issue.
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