|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Robert Dean
||
|| Saudi Arabia defends razing of fort
||
|| By Suzan Fraser
||
|| Jan. 14, 2002 | ANKARA, Turkey (AP) --
||
|| Saudi Arabia acted in the interests of Muslim pilgrims
|| by razing an Ottoman-era fortress close to shrines in
|| Mecca, the Saudi ambassador said Monday, defending an
|| action that outraged many Turks.
||
|| The Turkish government called it a "cultural
|| massacre," and Turkish ultra-nationalists burned
|| posters of the Saudi king in front of the Saudi
|| embassy in Ankara on Saturday.
||
(...)
Iraq has also wrecked Ottoman-era buildings and monuments in the past. Arabs, like Serbs, Greeks, and Armenians, find it hard to forgive Turkey's Ottoman past - real or imagined. But that fort really hurt because Turks have a soft spot for forts. You see many nouveau riches from the provinces living in crenellated houses and mansions, often with a tower or two, often with a statue of a howling wolf in the garden in lieu of a dwarf.
Hakki