TURKEY BLAMES JEWS FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL

Blame game: Turkey points finger over 'genocide' bill (JTA)
ISTANBUL (JTA) -- When a U.S. congressional committee approved a resolution recognizing the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide, Turkey’s reaction was swift and harsh: Blame the Jews.

In an interview with the liberal Islamic Zaman newspaper on the eve of the resolution’s approval Oct. 10 by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said he told American Jewish leaders that a genocide bill would strengthen the public perception in Turkey that “Armenian and Jewish lobbies unite forces against Turks.”

Babacan added, “We have told them that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this.”

The Turkish public seems to have absorbed that message. An online survey by Zaman’s English-language edition asking why Turks believed the bill succeeded showed at one point that 22 percent of respondents had chosen “Jews’ having legitimized the genocide claims” -- second only to “Turkey’s negligence.”

BUSH REJECTS TURKEY "GENOCIDE" TAG

THIS IS DISGUSTING. WHEN HITLER REASSURED HIS HENCHMEN THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE CRITICIZED FOR MASS-MURDERING JEWS AND POLES, HE SAID, "Who still talks nowadays of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

BUSH REJECTS TURKEY 'GENOCIDE' TAG (The Age - Australia)
THE US President has opposed moves to legally term the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire a "genocide", backing Turkey's stand on the issue.

"The President has described the events of 1915 as 'one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century', but believes the determination of whether or not the events constitute a genocide should be a matter for historical inquiry, not legislation," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

The comments came after George Bush talked with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discussed legislation before the US Congress, which describes the deaths of Armenians from 1915 to 1923 as genocide. "The President reiterated his opposition to this resolution, the passage of which would be harmful to US relations with Turkey," Mr Johndroe said.

Turkey is a key Muslim ally for the US and a fellow member of NATO.

Turkey's then foreign minister Abdullah Gul, who is now Turkish President, warned after a visit to Washington in February that passing the draft would "poison" ties and "spoil everything" between the two countries.

A similar draft to the resolution before Congress was pulled in October 2000, following an intervention by then president Bill Clinton.

Turkey categorically rejects Armenian claims that 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in systematic deportations and killings during 1915-1918, as the Ottoman Empire was breaking up.

Mr Bush commemorates the massacres each year in a speech but stops short of calling them genocide.

Many countries have recognised the killings as genocide, and Turkey has responded by temporarily downgrading its political and economic ties with some of them.

AZERBAIJAN'S JEWS SEEK MEMORIAL FOR 3000 MURDERED BY ARMENIANS

Memorial sought for Mountain Jews (JTA)
Azerbaijan's Jewish leaders sought permission to put up a memorial for the several thousand Mountain Jews they say were murdered by Armenians in 1918. The Baku Sun reported that the Jewish leaders made the request to President Ilham Aliyev at a gathering last month at the Human Rights Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.

The Jewish leaders cited research saying that some 3,000 Mountain Jews, along with tens of thousands of Azeris, were murdered in the region of Guba by Armenian bandits and nationalists -- an incident marked March 31 by the Azeris as genocide. Historians are still investigating the killings, which they say where were covered up by for decades by the communist regime.

Perhaps 40,000 Mountain Jews remain scattered about the remote passes of the mostly Muslim Caucasus.