Khosk Gab Tourkio Hed

[Maral]

KHOSK GAB TOURKIO HED

• ENGAGEMENT DATE SET FOR OCTOBER 3, 2005

• EIGHT THOUSAND ARMENIANS IN BRUSSELS DEMONSTRATE TO DENOUNCE DECISION TO OPEN MEMBERSHIP TO TURKEY

 

Agence France Presse December 17, 2004 Friday 6:52 GMT - Brussels - Thousands of Europeans of Armenian origin demonstrated during a European Union summit here Friday, and denounced a decision by the bloc's leaders to open membership talks with Turkey.

"This is not a negotiation. It is a capitulation. Political Europe is very seriously compromised," Laurent Leylekian, the director of the Euro-Armenian federation, said in a statement.

After a day of frantic haggling, the bloc's leaders struck a hard-fought deal Friday securing Turkish promises on the divided island of Cyprus in return for Ankara winning the historic prize of a start to EU entry talks. "This stunning result is without any doubt due to the inflexibility

of Ankara, which has not ceded anything, but also down to the patent

weakness of the union's political structures," Leylekian said.

Organisers said some 8,000 people f Armenian origin had demonstrated in the Belgian capital during the key summit, calling on Turkey to admit to genocide against their people nearly 90 years ago.

They insisted such an acknowledgement must be a precondition for Turkey to begin talks on joining the EU.

Turkey has always denied the mass killing of Armenians during World War 1 was genocide, saying the deaths were not ethnically motivated but resulted from a crackdown on collaborators with the Russians.

The demonstrators outside the EU headquarters came from Armenian communities in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Russia. Twenty bus loads brought demonstrators from Paris, while planes were chartered to ferry in others from Athens and Stockholm.

Speakers addressing the crowd included Garo Housepian, an elected official in the French Mediterranean city of Marseilles. He said a delegation had been received here by the Dutch, who currently preside over the EU.

Meanwhile in Armenia, more than 200 young people demonstrated outside the European Union Commission's office in the capital Yerevan. "European countries must not weaken because of false reforms in Turkey and must not integrate into their ranks a country that committed the great crime against humanity, genocide," they declared in a letter to the commission office.

"In agreeing to start negotiations, European countries are taking on responsibility for this crime," it added. In fact the theme of Armenia was not on the official Brussels summit agenda. Turkey's EU hopes had instead been threatened by a standoff over calls for Ankara to recognize Cyprus, diplomats said.

Separately, in Italy, the anti-immigrant Northern League party which forms part of the government of Silvio Berlusconi, organised several demonstrations against the decision to open talks with Turkey.

The party is demanding a referendum be held in Italy on the issue and has called supporters to demonstrate on Sunday in the northern city of Milan.