TURKISH NATIONALISTS PROTEST IN BERLIN OVER RESOLUTION ON ARMENIANS

Deutsche Presse-Agentur

March 18, 2006, Saturday 

13:05:07 Central European Time

More than 2,000 Turkish nationalists demonstrated in Berlin on Saturday in support of denials that a genocide of Armenians 

took place under the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

The protestors demanded among other things the repeal of a resolution passed by a unanimous vote in the German 

parliament last year that called on Turkey to hold an open dialogue on the Armenian massacre.

The resolution has contributed to a rift between Germany and Turkey.

According to independent estimates, more than a million Armenians were killed in the massacre.

A Berlin court on Friday allowed the demonstration to take place under strict conditions, included not characterizing the 

Armenian massacre as a lie in either speech or on placards.

The march had originally been banned by the police.

FRANCO-TURKISH GROUPS RALLY AGAINST ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MEMORIAL

Agence France Presse -- English

March 18, 2006 Saturday 7:38 PM GMT

LYON, France

Several thousand people joined a boisterous rally in this southeastern French city Saturday organized by Franco-Turkish 

associations opposed to the construction of an Armenian genocide memorial.

The meeting turned rowdy when another group, students staging their own protest against a controversial new employment 

contract for youths, began throwing bottles at the Turkish groups and police stepped in with tear gas to separate the two 

groups.

Police estimated the pro-Turkish gathering at about 3,200 protestors, who carried signs claiming "There never was an 

Armenian genocide".

"We do not want a monument erected. It is a verdict without a judgment," said Sevda Gog, a representative of the 

Franco-Turkish committee, which plans to petition the Socialist mayor of Lyon, Gerard Collomb.

In 2001 France declared to be genocide against Armenians the events that took place under the Ottoman empire from 

1915 to 1917, leaving 1.5 million dead, according to Armenian estimates. The French decision angered Turkey.

In 2003 Collomb announced that Lyon would build an Armenian memorial, though plans were suspended on the advice 

of the regional commission.

Armenians say their kinsmen were slaughtered in an orchestrated genocide under the Ottoman Empire, a theory many 

countries have endorsed, much to Ankara's ire.

Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that between 300,000 and half a million Armenians and at least as many 

Turks died in civil strife during World War I when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and 

sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling empire.