An editorial in this morning's New York Times catalogues recent instances of Turkey's "self-destructive obsession" with denouncing references to the Armenian genocide.

The Turks pulled out of a NATO exercise this week because the Canadian prime minister used the term "genocide" in reference to the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during and after World War I. Before that, the Turkish ambassador to France was temporarily recalled to protest a French bill that would make it illegal to deny that the Armenian genocide occurred. And before that, a leading Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was charged with "insulting Turkish identity" for referring to the genocide (the charges were dropped after an international outcry).
. . .
Granted, genocide is a difficult crime for any nation to acknowledge. But it is absurd to treat any reference to the issue within Turkey as a crime and to scream "lie!" every time someone mentions genocide.

The preponderance of historical scholarship supports the claim that over a million Armenians died between 1914 and 1923 in a operation backed by the Turkish government of the day.  Turkey should realise that its hysterical reaction to any attempt even to discuss the issue only damages the credibility of its denials.

via e-mail from Alfonso Marin.

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