p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px 'Bookman Old Style'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} Turkish liberals commemorated the Armenian massacres this week but, for the first time, had to contend with a big drop in turnout and the police banning the word “genocide”.

“I can no longer [utter] ‘Armenian genocide’ in public, and that is a big step backwards,” said Nicolas Tavitian, director of the Brussels-based Armenian General Benevolent Union Europe. He was on his sixth visit to Istanbul to mark the day in 1915 when the Ottoman police arrested 250 of the city’s Armenian doctors, engineers and lawyers in what is considered the start of the genocide.

Turkish authorities only gave permission for the April 24 commemoration on the afternoon of April 23. Moreover, they insisted that the main ceremony be held at the bottom of Istiklal Caddesi, the main pedestrian street, rather than at the more popular upper end, where it is usually held. The upshot was that a mere 200 people took part in the event, a sharp decline from the 2,000 people who marked the 100th anniversary in 2015.

Armenians and numerous historians contend that 1.5 million Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were killed during 1915-18. Turkey admits that about 300,000 Armenians died during that period, but insists that they perished as a result of wartime clashes between Muslims and Christians. Ankara vehemently claims that there were no systematic killings of Armenians and therefore no genocide.