ARMENIA: Thousands rally in the Armenian capital Yerevan in memory of journalist Hrant Dink murdered in Istanbul

Thousands of people attended a memorial rally in the centre of Yerevan for killed Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Dink, Turkey's best-known Armenian voice abroad, was shot dead last week in Istanbul. Many Armenians believe Dink was killed because he wanted Turkey to recognise the mass killings of Armenians by Turks during World War One. Thousands of people held a memorial rally in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday (January 23) in memory of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who was gunned down in Istanbul last week. An unemployed teenager has confessed to Friday's shooting of Hrant Dink in an attack that has raised questions about Turkey's tolerance for minorities and freedom of expression. Many Armenians believe Dink was targeted because he wanted Turkey to acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians here during World War One as genocide. Turkish nationalists see the genocide claims as an insult to national honour. The murder of Dink, 52, who had tried to promote reconciliation between Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians, has triggered anger as well as sorrow. "Today is the day we stand up all together and say as Armenians, Armenians living in Armenia we are going to show the world that we will keep Hrant wishes alive. Not just by words, but we are going to act up on it. We are going to push this forward. We are going to all become Hrants. Like they said in Turkey, like they are saying around the world, we are all Armenians, we are all Hrants. This means we will follow Hrants wishes, what is words were and what his mission, his objections were in life," said Raffi Niziblyan, taking part in memorial rally for Dink in Yerevan. Turkey denies claims that 1.5 million Armenians perished on its territory in a systematic genocide during World War One. It says both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in large numbers as the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Ottoman Empire collapsed. Ankara also says many Armenians had been collaborating with invading Russian troops in eastern Turkey. The diaspora has lobbied for decades to have the genocide recognised, and some foreign parliaments have done so. Radical Armenian nationalists also shot dozens of Turkish diplomats and their family members from the 1970s to the 1990s in revenge attacks for the massacres. Armenians are an officially recognised minority in modern Turkey, but the community complains of continued prejudice and discrimination. They hope that Turkey's efforts to join the European Union will lead to greater freedom and tolerance. Turkey's pro-EU centre-right government, which faces a strong nationalist challenge in a parliamentary election due in November, has proposed forming a joint commission of Turkish and Armenian historians to study archives from the period. But Armenia, which shares a border with Turkey that is closed due to a territorial row, has rejected the proposal. It says the genocide is an established historic fact.

ITN Source | January 23, 2007

Tags:. .proposal. .historic. .expression. .border. .russian