Çandar served as special adviser on foreign policy to Turkish president Turgut Özal between 1991 and 1993 . He was the lead on the establishment of relationship between the Turkish Presidency and the Iraqi Kurdish leadership ( 1991 ) that led recognition of Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani in Turkey . He was also actively involved in Balkan politics , especially during the ethnic unrest in the Balkans between 1993 and 1995 . In 1998 , he was among the well-known journalists who have been subjected to an aggressive defamation campaign by the military . Between 1999 and 2000 , he did research work on " Turkey of the 21st century " as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace . His description of the 1998 events in Turkey as a " post-modern coup " . Çandar is one of the Turkish intellectuals who have recognized the Armenian Genocide by releasing an apology for the " great catastrophe of 1915 " . The text of the apology was " My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915 . I reject this injustice and for my share , I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters . I apologize to them . " In 2007 , he condemned the authorities for depriving Aghtamar of its Armenian past by renaming it to " Akdamar "
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Cengiz Çandar