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Tuesday, 23 January, 2001, 10:27 GMT
Bitter history of Armenian genocide row
![]() Armenians believe 1.5m of their ancestors were killed
By Chris Morris in Istanbul
In a country where the interpretation of history is still a sensitive political issue, the allegation of genocide has raised a political storm. Turkey had warned France it faced substantial retaliation for passing a bill which labelled as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Within days, warnings became action. A spy satellite contract with a French firm was cancelled, and the future of 10 other lucrative projects was in doubt.
There have been demonstrations and calls for consumer boycotts. It could take years to repair the damage. For the Armenian diaspora, though, it has taken decades for them to get their message onto the international agenda. Now they hope to go further, but Turkey intends to fight them all the way. This bitter dispute is rooted in a violent period of world history, as Europe and much of the Middle East was torn apart by World War I.
During the war, the Armenians fought with the Russians, the Turks with the Germans, and the Ottoman Government regarded its Armenian citizens as "the enemy within". Modern Turkey admits that thousands of Turks and up to 300,000 Armenians were killed in widespread clashes between 1915 and 1917.
Both sides produce stacks of documents to back up their arguments, and the Turks say the issue should be left to the historians. Archive dispute Many researchers, however, complain that they have not been given full access to the Ottoman archives to make a proper assessment. And so the dispute rages on. It has now become a serious political issue between Turkey and France, home of the largest Armenian community in western Europe.
There is a strong body of opinion in Turkey which believes that the genocide allegations are part of a broader campaign to discredit Ankara's application for membership of the European Union. National pride Now, they fear, other European parliaments will implement similar legislation. In a country where national pride is so important, and sensitivity to criticism from abroad is so acute, the Armenian genocide debate stirs deep and lasting anger. The vast majority of Turks regard this as a matter of honour, and an insult to a country which was created from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Only a few voices are daring to suggest that Turkey should confront its past with a more open mind.
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