Ahmet Insel

Writers and academics in Turkey have issued a public apology for the Armenian genocides that took place over ninety years ago, reports Robert Tait for The Guardian. The genocide, which killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, has never been acknowledged by Turkish authorities despite repeated pressure from historians and writers including Orhan Pamuk; those who pressed the point have faced serious state persecution. Three scholars, Ahmet Insel, Baskin Oran and Cengiz Aktar, and a journalist, Ali Bayramoglu, wrote an open letter inviting Turks to sign an online petition supporting its sentiments. The letter says: “My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathise with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologise to them.” The writers intend to collect signatures from intellectuals before opening a secure website where Turkish citizens can join up. Nationalists are very unhappy about this, as are some prominent who were not invited. As historian Ayşe Hür said in an interview with Today’s Zaman, “For me, all these events were the fault of Turkish nationalism flourishing at that time, and personally, I don’t identify with it, so I do not feel the need to apologize personally.”