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BBC RADIO CELEBRATES EASTER WITH RAFT OF RELIGIOUS PROGRAMMING
RadioandMusic.com, UK
March 17 2015
RADIO 4
Sunday - Sunday 5 April, 7.10-7.50 am

For this special edition for Easter Sunday, Sunday will be marking
the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Presenter, Caroline
Wyatt, will explore the story of how, in 1915, hundreds of thousands of
Armenians were forced to leave their homes in the Ottoman Empire. Many
were killed or died from starvation or disease during the deportation.

While the events remain a highly sensitive issue, the Armenian
Apostolic Church plan to mark the centenary by canonising one and
a half million victims of what they say was the genocide of the
Armenian people.

On Easter Day in 1870 the Holy Trinity Armenian Church of Manchester
opened its doors for the first time. Sunday visits this community to
reflect on the anniversary and its legacy. Plus other religious news
and current affairs. 


BRITAIN'S PRINCE HARRY TO ATTEND WW1 GALLIPOLI 

EVENTS ON APRIL 25
Today's Zaman, Turkey
March 17 2015

Britain's prince harry, the younger grandson of Queen Elizabeth II,
is planning to participate in the commemoration of the centennial of
the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey on April 25.

Royal officials said on Tuesday that the 30-year old prince will leave
the armed forces in June after 10 years of service, which included two
tours of duty in Afghanistan. Harry's final army duties will include
a four-week assignment in April and May with the Australian Defense
Force. His destinations include the World War I Gallipoli campaign
in Turkey.

Turkey announced in January that it will host international events
to mark the centennial of the Gallipoli Campaign on April 24, a date
that overlaps with annual commemoration of what Armenians claim was a
genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

More than 100 countries, including Armenia, were invited to the
events. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invited Armenian
President Serzh Sarksyan in January to the 100th anniversary
celebration of the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I to commemorate
the Armenian and Turkish soldiers who fought side-by-side and died
together during the war. In response to Erdogan's invitation to the
event, Sarksyan has said that before organizing such a commemorative
event, Turkey should remember its far more important obligation to the
whole of humanity to recognize and condemn the Armenian "genocide"
at the end of World War I. Turkey traditionally commemorates its
fallen soldiers in the Battle of Gallipoli on March 18 every year.

Erdogan said on Sunday that representatives from about 50 countries,
including heads of state and prime ministers, are expected to attend
the commemoration in Turkey.

Russian officials announced last week that President Vladimir 

Putin will attend the "genocide" commemoration in the Armenian 

capital of Yerevan on April 24.


RFE/RL Report

German Party Leader Urges Turkey To Normalize Ties With 

Armenia
Sargis Harutyunyan
16.03.2015

An ethnic Turk leading a major German political party urged Turkey to
unconditionally establish diplomatic relations and open its border
with Armenia as he ended a visit to Yerevan on Monday.

Cem Ozdemir, the co-chairman of the Alliance `90/The Greens party,
also predicted that Ankara will eventually recognize the 1915 Armenian
genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

"I think Turkey will do that sooner or later," Ozdemir told RFE/RL's
Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) in an interview. "It's a matter of
time. I don't know when it will happen. But I'm sure one day it will
happen."

"I don't see a reason why Turkish leaders could not show that
courage," he said. "It's not about the past. It's about the
future. Addressing the past opens the path towards the future."

Underlining his own recognition of the Armenian genocide, Ozdemir laid
flowers at the genocide memorial in Yerevan at the start of his trip
on March 12. President Serzh Sarkisian praised his stance on the issue
when received the German Greens leader later on that day.

While allowing greater public debate on the sensitive issue and
offering first-ever condolences of descendants of the genocide
victims, the current Turkish government stands by its predecessors'
strong denial of a deliberate Ottoman government effort to wipe out
the Armenian population of the crumbling empire. Ankara has caused
outrage among many Armenians by scheduling this year's commemoration
of a Turkish victory in a First World War battle for April 24, the day
that will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the genocide.

Ozdemir criticized the timing of the official Turkish ceremonies to
remember the Battle of Gallipoli but expressed confidence they will
not deflect international attention from the genocide centennial. "It
won't work because Turks remember that [the Gallipoli ceremonies]
never took place on April 24," he said. "It is the first time that
they will take place on April 24."

Ozdemir, whose opposition party controls 10 percent of seats in the
German Bundestag, also stressed the importance of normalizing Turkey's
relations with Armenia. "My message to President [Recep Tayyip]
Erdogan, if I have a chance to talk to him, would be: open the border
with Armenia -- that would be a gesture on the 100th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide -- and name the border after Hrant Dink. That
would be another gesture to remember Hrant, who served all his life to
bring Armenians and Turks together," he said, referring to the
prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist assassinated in Istanbul in
2007.

"And then of course, after the border is opened, a lot of things would
be much easier," the German politician went on. "Turks and Armenians
would meet each other. The Turkish economy could invest in Armenia. It
would also help Armenia to move closer towards Europe."

Successive Turkish governments have made the normalization of their
relations with Yerevan conditional on a resolution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that would satisfy Azerbaijan, Turkey's main
regional ally. They have accepted Baku's claims that an open border
would only encourage the Armenians to maintain the Karabakh status
quo.

Ozdemir insisted, however, that a Turkish-Armenian normalization would
only facilitate a Karabakh settlement. "I personally believe that it
would make it easier to negotiate between Armenia and Azerbaijan once
Turkey could be an honest broker," he said. "You can help bring the
two sides together if you have diplomatic relations with both
countries."


RFE/RL Report 

Another European Resolution Backs Armenian Genocide Recognition
17.03.2015

A parliamentary body representing the European Union's member and
partner states on Tuesday called for greater international recognition
of the 1915 Armenian genocide and urged Turkey to "come to terms with
its past."

In a resolution adopted during a session in Yerevan, the Euronest
Parliamentary Assembly said "the absence of unequivocal and timely
condemnation of the Armenian Genocide largely contributed to the
failure to prevent future crimes against humanity."

Therefore, it said, "prevention of genocides and crimes against
humanity should be amongst the priorities of the international
community."The world should also strive for "the restoration of the
rights of people subjected to genocide," added the assembly bringing
together members of the European Parliament and legislatures of
ex-Soviet states involved in the EU's Eastern Partnership program.

The resolution further "deeply deplores" attempts to deny the World
War One-era slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey
and other genocides. In that regard, it "invites Turkey to come to
term with its past."

The Euronest text was adopted less than a week after the European
Parliament reaffirmed its recognition of the Armenian genocide in an
annual report on human rights practices around the world. It urged all
EU member states to do the same.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected the EU legislature's appeal,
saying that it is "utterly devoid of historical reality and legal
basis."

"We find these assertions in all respects extremely problematic and
regret them deeply," the ministry spokesman, Tanju Bilgic, said in a
weekend statement. "The report interprets a certain period of the
Ottoman Empire, which was tragic for all the people of the Empire,
one-sidedly and with a sense of selective justice."


armenianow.com 

Eurovision2015: Armenia changes song title
17.03.15

Armenians Deny: Yerevan reiterates no political message in its
Eurovision 2015 entry

Armenia has changed the title of its Eurovision 2015 entry, the Song
Contest's official website said.

Originally, the song unveiled last week and performed by the band,
Genealogy, was titled "Don't Deny". Turkish and Azeri fans and media
alleged Armenia was promoting a "political message" promoting the
recognition of the Armenian Genocide on the year marking the centennial
of the 1915 massacres.

"The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) Reference Group took notice of
Armenian Public TV's (AMPTV) request to change the title of their
entry for the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest into "Face The Shadow",
after having submitted the song formally to the competition," it said.

"The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the ESC Reference Group
welcome AMPTV's request to change the title of the song in order to
take away any suggestion of political intent behind the song," it
said, quoting Gohar Gasparyan, the head of the Armenian Delegation,
as saying on behalf of AMPTV that it was done "to strengthen the
concept of an anthem of peace, love and unity".

Armenia will take part in the first Semi-Final of the 2015 Eurovision
Song Contest on 19th of May.


THE DEAD BODY IN THE WARDROBE
Today's Zaman, Turkey
March 17 2015
JOOST LAGENDIJK

With April 24 clearly on the horizon, there is no escape anymore.

That day, people all around the world will remember the Armenian
Genocide. The Turkish government has made a shameless and
all-too-transparent effort to try and distract attention from this
centennial by shifting the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign
from April 25 to the same day. It won't work and it will unnecessarily
discredit Turkey.

In the run-up to April 24, much will be said and written about what
happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915. Thomas de Waal, a British
journalist and writer who works as a senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, decided to write a book titled
"Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide" in
which he focuses on what came after 1915. De Waal is a specialist on
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and for good reasons he does not try
to write another history of the 1915-1916 events. The book starts with
a fair and balanced treatment of what has already been written about
the deportations and massacres that took place in those years. What
makes the book an invaluable contribution to the debate, however,
is his description of the long-term impact these traumatic events
have had on Turks but especially on Armenians, and his effort to go
beyond the question that has dominated the discussion for so long now:
Should these events be labeled as genocide or not?

De Waal makes his own position on this burning question clear at the
beginning of the book. He uses the term "Armenian Genocide" because,
after much reading, he "respectfully agreed with the scholarly
consensus that what happened to the Armenians in 1915-1916 did indeed
fit the 1948 United Nations definition of genocide. At the same time,
along with many others, I do so with mixed feelings, having also
reached the conclusion that the 'G-word' has become both legalistic
and over-emotional, and that it obstructs the understanding of the
historical rights and wrongs of the issue as much as it illuminates
them." That nuanced perspective sets the tone for the rest of the book.

De Waal underlines that for the first 50 years after 1915, the debate
among diaspora Armenians was not about 1915 but about the legitimacy
of Soviet Armenia. It was only after 1965 that genocide recognition
became crucial for identity-building among Armenians, especially
those living outside of the country. It took a long time for Turks
to understand this preoccupation but De Waal is optimistic that one
day Turkish society will come to terms with the issue of how up to 2
million Armenians "went missing" at the end of the Ottoman Empire. He
quotes Cengiz Aktar as saying that "the dead body is too heavy to
keep in the wardrobe."

But De Waal also highlights the problem of timing when he quotes an
Armenian from Diyarbakır, now living in New Jersey: "For the Turks,
100 years is too soon; for us, it is too late." As De Waal recognizes,
most Turks still reject the "genocide" label because they feel it
equates the actions of their grandfathers with those of the Nazis. For
the Armenians, there is simply no other term that can deliver justice
for the suffering of their own grandparents. De Waal tries to find a
way out of this trap, making it clear he personally prefers the term
"Great Catastrophe" but also accepting the fact that deleting the
word "genocide" from the debate or replacing it with, for instance,
"crimes against humanity," is unlikely to happen.

His conclusion: "Almost no one, it seems, admits to genocide. But
the only other way forward requires that Turkey shed its paranoia
about the implications of the word 'genocide'. This is a long-term
aspiration that is more likely to come about through enhanced
Armenian-Turkish dialogue than through confrontation. The word then
could become normalized and acceptable throughout Turkish society,
as it already has become for a small progressive group. Possibly,
the day when Turkish society as a whole accepts the word 'genocide'
in relation to the Armenians is the day when the Genocide can become
a Catastrophe again."