Don't Ask Me about Genocide: Turkish NGO Leader Leaves Press Conference Unfinished

Salih Yuge (R), a Turkish political figure and President of Youth Union Association non-governmental organization, currently in Armenia, left a press conference today untimely due to questions over the Armenian Genocide.

With the press conference yet to begin Yuge informed the journalists he would not answer to any question pertaining to Genocide and that he was in Armenia as a head of the NGO to establish a dialogue between the Armenian and Turkish societies.

"I would like to inform you from the very beginning not to ask questions about Genocide, if you do ask anyway, they will go unanswered," said Yuge.

Anyway, all the questions the Armenian journalists posed related to the Armenian Genocide in the break up of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Yuge was answering them by saying that the history should be left to historians.

"We are always ready for dialogue, and it does not depend on historical and political circumstances," said Yuge.

Asked whether his decision not to answer to questions on the Armenian Genocide meant "we should forget about the past," Yuge said that political figures do their job, historians and NGOs, in turn, doing theirs as what pertains to the issue.

But when the Armenian journalist kept on posing questions about the Genocide, Yuge, saying that they had agreed with the administration of the press club, hosting the press conference, to exclude such questions from the agenda, he did not consider it expedient to continue the press conference and left the hall.