Lebanon Armenians Fire Turkish Flag

[Dave]

EDITed with non-Turkish source

 

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?ed...rticle_id=15962

 

Armenians protest as Erdogan arrives in Beirut

Demonstrators demand Turkey acknowledge and apologize for Ottoman-era genocide

 

By Rym Ghazal

Daily Star staff

Thursday, June 16, 2005

 

 

BEIRUT: Hundreds of Lebanese Armenians waved Armenian flags and burned Turkish flags to send a message to visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "to acknowledge the Armenian genocide." "Animals are not welcome," read one demonstrator's sign under a picture of the visiting Turkish premier. The protestors gathered in Bourj Hammoud, an Armenian suburb of Beirut, and shouted slogans condemning the 1915 Ottoman massacre of the Armenians.

 

The demonstration, organized by the Armenian Tashnag Party, was not a protest against the actual visit, "as diplomatic relations are respected," said a Tashnag Party spokesperson, but rather was intended as a "reminder" to the Turkish and the Lebanese governments about the genocide that reportedly killed 1.5 million Armenians.

 

"By Turkey ignoring what happened ... it is like a painful continuation of the genocide," said the spokesperson.

 

Hratch Balekijan, one of the protestors, came carrying a poster of Erdogan depicted as Pinocchio.

 

Balekijan said: "Turkey keeps lying about what happened and Lebanon keeps ignoring our voices."

 

Balekijan, like the rest of the demonstrators, is frustrated at how, after 100 years of demonstrations over the killings, some countries like Lebanon have not yet officially acknowledged the massacre as genocide.

 

Lebanon is home to the Arab world's largest Armenian community, made up of descendants of survivors of the 1915-1917 massacres in Turkey. There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese Armenians, half as many as before the 1975-1990 civil war.

 

 

While waiting in the airport for the Turkish prime minister's arrival, Turkish Ambassador Irfan Acar told The Daily Star: "We have been saying that since the genocide remains a controversial issue, we are inviting historians from both sides, Turkish and Armenian, to meet and come and view our archives and reach a final conclusion."

 

"Instead of burning flags and going to the streets, there is a more civilized way of dealing with this issue like organizing a formal commission and sending it to Turkey," said Acar.

 

Erdogan is expected to stay for two days, during which he will hold talks with Lebanese officials and participate in the Arab Economic Forum.

 

The Armenian slaughter remains a controversial issue. Several countries like France have recognized the massacres as genocide - a term Turkey fiercely rejects - and Brussels has urged Ankara to face its past and expand freedom of speech.

 

But Ankara last month squelched a landmark conference that was to have been held at Istanbul's prestigious Bogazici University and would have questioned the official line on the mass killings.

Edited June 15, 2005 by Dave