On December 12, 2008, a group of Turkish intellectuals launched an internet campaign to apologize for the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians in Turkey. Significantly, the “apology campaign” did not employ the highly disputed term “genocide” (soykırım), opting instead for a Turkish translation of the term commonly used in the Armenian language, the “Great Catastrophe” (Meds Yeghern or, in Turkish, Büyük Felaket). Signatories to the apology declared:
My conscience does not accept the insensitivity [shown in] the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them. […]
Memo #:
86
Series:
2
PDF:
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/pepm_086.pdf
