{"id":214,"date":"2015-02-11T20:32:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T20:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/?p=214"},"modified":"2015-02-11T20:32:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T20:32:50","slug":"turkish-president-rebukes-armenian-rejection-of-april-24-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/?p=214","title":{"rendered":"Turkish president rebukes Armenian rejection of April 24 invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BOGOTA<br \/>\nHurriyet Daily News<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan has called on Armenia to examine the 1915 events through the lens of \u201cscience, not politics,\u201d criticizing the rejection of Ankara\u2019s invitation to representatives of the country to attend war commemoration ceremonies in Turkey. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s remove the 1915 events from the area of politics and refer to science and scientists,\u201d Erdo\u011fan said during a symposium on the topic, co-organized by Bogota Externado University and Ankara University. He was attending the event as part of his official visit to Colombia on Feb. 10.<br \/>\n\u201cWhat the Armenians did against the Turks and what the Turks did against the Armenians 100 years ago has not been properly discussed,\u201d Erdo\u011fan said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have made an effort to fix relations with Armenia and open a new page. Unfortunately, our hand of peace has always been rejected by the influence of the Armenian diaspora,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In January, the Turkish president sent invitation letters to more than 100 leaders, including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to participate in ceremonies on April 24 marking the centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli in \u00c7anakkale. The ceremonies in \u00c7anakkale were rearranged this year to coincide with Armenia\u2019s traditional day of remembrance for the Armenian victims of 1915.<\/p>\n<p>Sargsyan reportedly denounced Erdo\u011fan\u2019s invitation as a \u201cshort-sighted\u201d attempt to overshadow the 100th anniversary the massacres of Ottoman Armenians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would like them to come and be in \u00c7anakkale on April 24, to breathe in that atmosphere and try to understand that happened among our hundreds of thousands of martyrs. But they won\u2019t do that,\u201d Erdo\u011fan said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey once again blocked peace and dialogue with their statement, which violated protocols of courtesy,\u201d he added, while vowing \u201cnot to give up on our efforts for peace and dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will continue to approach this issue under the light of history and science, not with propaganda, perception games or ugly international politics,\u201d he stressed. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis year is the 100th anniversary. We are still reiterating our sincere call,\u201d Erdo\u011fan added.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<h2>It\u2019s impossible to close the door when it\u2019s locked from the inside-Armenia\u2019s MFA counters<br \/>\nErdo\u011fan<\/h2>\n<p>YEREVAN, 11 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS. It&rsquo;s impossible to close a door when it&rsquo;s locked from the inside. This is what press speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Tigran Balayan declared as he commented on Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdo\u011fan&rsquo;s statement at the request of NEWS.am.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, it became clear that during the official visit to Colombia, Erdo\u011fan had declared that &ldquo;Armenia has closed the door to peace&rdquo;.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We know that the Armenian Diaspora is leading an anti-Turkish campaign. We have made efforts to turn a new page, but unfortunately, the hand that we extended is still hanging in thin air. We said let us remove that issue from the political agenda and move it to the academic level prior to the 100<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;anniversary. We sent an invitation to &Ccedil;anakkale on April 24<sup>th<\/sup>, but Armenia closed the door to peace,&rdquo; Erdo\u011fan declared.<\/p>\n<p>Let us mention that Turkey traditionally marked the anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli on March 18<sup>th<\/sup>, not on April 24<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>Before Turkey would decide to move the date, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had invited President of Turkey Recep Tayyib Erdo\u011fan to Yerevan and attend the Armenian Genocide Centennial Commemoration events on April 24<sup>th<\/sup>, but Erdo\u011fan had not responded to the invitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BOGOTA Hurriyet Daily News Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan has called on Armenia to examine the 1915 events through the lens of \u201cscience, not politics,\u201d criticizing the rejection of Ankara\u2019s invitation to representatives of the country to attend war commemoration ceremonies in Turkey. \u201cLet\u2019s remove the 1915 events from the area of politics and refer&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gallipoli100.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Erdogan.jpg?fit=626%2C431&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallipoli100.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}