The erection of the monument, proposed by the Assyrian Universal Alliance to commemorate the alleged Assyrian genocide, was approved by the Fairfield Council in Sydney’s western suburbs last week. Denying the Assyrians’ genocide claims, Turkey’s ambassador to Australia, Oğuz Özge, called the council’s decision “very offensive,” The Australian’s Web site reported on Tuesday. “It hurts the Turkish Australians living in this country and it is an attempt at destroying the harmony of the two communities living in Australia side by side. We are looking into whether we can do anything, legally or otherwise,” Özge was quoted as saying by the daily. The Turkish Foreign Ministry has already condemned the council’s decision, while reiterating Ankara’s stance on controversial disputes about history, saying the issue should be discussed by historians exclusively through objective analysis.
The monument will commemorate the Assyrian victims of an alleged genocide that supposedly happened between 1915 and 1918. According to the allegations, approximately 750,000 Assyrians, or approximately 75 percent of the Assyrian population in the former Ottoman Empire, were killed.
