Armenian intellectuals to launch counter-apology campaign

A similar campaign launched by Turkish intellectuals in December 2008 for the killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire triggered a heated debate in Turkey and drew angry criticism from certain circles which claimed the apology campaign would deal a blow to Turkey's efforts to normalize relations with Armenia.

An academic and the co-chairman of the Turkish-Armenian Dialogue Group, Armen Gakavian, who talked to the Radikal daily yesterday about the apology initiative, said the group of Armenian intellectuals was opposing any kind of violence committed in the past.

"I apologize to the Ottomans and Turks for the murders committed in the name of the Armenian public and share the feelings of innocent Ottomans and Turks who feel pain over this," reads the text of the Armenian intellectuals' apology campaign.

Gakavian said the reason prompting the Armenian intellectuals to initiate the apology campaign was the similar campaign launched by a group of Turkish intellectuals.

"I cannot conscientiously accept the indifference to the Great Disaster that Ottoman Armenians suffered in 1915, and its denial. I reject this injustice and, acting of my own will, I share the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters, and I apologize to them," read the text of the apology by the Turkish intellectuals.

Ankara, which has no diplomatic relations with Armenia, wants Yerevan to abandon its campaign for the recognition of the 1915 killings as genocide and to make progress in its dispute with Azerbaijan before formal diplomatic relations can be established. Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with the Russian troops that were invading Ottoman territory. A visit by President Abdullah Gül to Yerevan in early September to watch a World Cup qualifying match between Turkey and Armenia's national soccer teams, upon an invitation by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, broke the ice between the two countries.