Former Czech President Vaclav Havel equated the Turkish killing of Armenians during World War I to the slaughter of Jews in World War II. Havel made his comments yesterday during a speech in Prague at a Council of Europe conference on Holocaust education, saying that civilization’s moral failings were responsible for genocides, “be it the holocaust of Armenians or Jews.” “These big catastrophes in fact are monstrous but in a way understandable products of this civilization.” Up to 1 million Armenians died in ethnic strife under the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1917. Twenty-four countries officially recognize the Armenian deaths as a genocide, but Turkey is adamant that no genocide occurred.
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