Turkey Canceled Gallipoli Celebrations

• 02.22.2015, 11:41
•  Region,  World,  Armenia

Asbarez

The Gallipoli campaign initiated by the Turkish government to be celebrated on April 24 is canceled, Today’s Zaman reports. As the paper informs the reason that the celebrations have been canceled is the lack of interest of state leaders who were invited to be present at the celebrations.

The paper quotes a government official, who preferred to stay anonymous, saying: “The Gallipoli celebrations have been canceled. All preparations have been suspended as the number of RSVPs to the invitation is not positive. Only five countries have accepted the invitation and they will not be represented by high-level officials.”

As Asbarez informs, Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director Aram Hamparian declared that “Turkey’s failure to stage this April 24th Gallipoli farce speaks to the success of our longterm strategy of internationally isolating Ankara’s policy of genocide denial.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had sent official invitations to more than 100 world leaders, including Armenian President Serzh Sardsyan. The latter advised Erdogan to remember and include in his calls of international peace also a message to the world to recognize the Armenian Genocide and commemorate its one-and-a-half million victims, stating that it should be everyone’s duty to deliver the real and undistorted history to the next generations. The President of Armenia added: “Turkey continues its traditional policy of denialism and by “improving” its toolset of distorting the history year by year, for the first time this year the centennial of the Battles of Gallipoli will be marked on April 24, notwithstanding that those began on March 18, 1915 and continued through late January 1916, with the allied landing and battles on the ground starting on April 25.” As for the invitation of Erdogan, President said that it is not in line with Armenian traditions to visit the invitee without having received a response to one’s own invitation.