US CONGRESSMEN MARK FOLEY URGED TURKEY TO FACE ITS OTTOMAN PAST

Mark Foley today for urging Turkish officials who are calling for an investigation into the

Armenian Genocide to instead use the opportunity to come to terms with their Ottoman legacy, the AAA reported. Foley, in a statement issued before Congress, said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's calls for a "political settling of accounts with history" appeared to be a delaying tactic meant to escape the judgment of history. "That accounting has already been done," Foley said. He added that experts in Holocaust and Genocide studies, as well as foremost authorities on WWI, have attested that the crime of genocide was committed by Ottoman Turkey. Foley also added that if Turkey is prepared to acknowledge the truth, its leaders should immediately engage in direct dialogue with their Armenian counterparts. If Turkey is still unwilling to take this essential step with Armenia, it could take a number of intermediate actions to demonstrate its shared values with countries of the European Union. The EU agreed last December to open membership talks with Turkey. Foley called upon the government of Turkey to consider the following preparatory steps: decriminalize speech on this subject within Turkey, destroy all monuments, museums and public references to the specious notion that the Armenian minority committed genocide against the majority Turks, end denial within Turkey, specifically within textbooks & reference books, officially condemn attacks against any Turk that acknowledges the facts of history, end the global campaign of threats against any nation that is in the process of affirming the Armenian Genocide.