Turkey has suspended its participation in the Creative Europe Project.

According to Haberturk newspaper’s website, the reason is because the creators of the Creative Europe program had provided 200 mln Euros in assistance to the “Aghet” concert of Dresden Philharmonic dedicated to the Armenian Genocide.

The Creative Europe program is a 1,460,000,000 Euros program that supports cultural initiatives being carried out in Europe between 2014 and 2020. The member countries, one of which was Turkey, allocate a certain amount of money every year to the common budget, the funds of which are spent to support the cultural projects that are carried out in the member states.

It is stated that in 2015, Turkey allocated 2,390,000 Euros to the program.

Let us remind that there was uproar in April when Turkey demanded an end to assistance to the Dresden Philharmonic since the latter was participating in the “Aghet” musical project dedicated to the Armenian Genocide. Ankara had also demanded that information about the project be removed from the official website of the European Commission.

In a press release devoted to the topic, the founding director of the Dresden Philharmonic Marcus Rindt had stated that that initiative against the commemorative event was “violence against freedom of speech”, writes ermenihaber.am.