Germany cancels Istanbul concert marking Armenian massacres
BERLIN - The German Foreign Ministry has cancelled a long-planned concert by the Dresden Sinfoniker orchestra in Istanbul on Nov. 13 that was to commemorate the 1915 massacre of Armenians after protests by Ankara, orchestra director Markus Rindt said on Wednesday.
The ministry notified the orchestra that the German consulate in Istanbul, where the performance called "aghet", or "catastrophe" in Armenian, was to have taken place, would not be available on Nov. 13, Rindt said. The piece premiered in Berlin in November.
"It's definitely been canceled. They said they wanted to reschedule at a better time, but when would that be? This has been planned for years," Rindt told Reuters.
Turkey, angered by the German parliament's decision to brand the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a genocide, had protested the use of European Union funding to support the performance, and earlier this month withdrew from the EU cultural arms program that was funding the project.
