Nationalist Turks protest Armenia move

HUNDREDS of Turkish nationalists chanting slogans and waving flags protested over the weekend against a controversial academic conference devoted to the WWI massacre of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

The conference had been due to open on Friday at two universities in Istanbul but a last-minute court order blocked it, causing acute embarrassment to the Turkish government just days before the start of its EU membership talks.

Organisers then circumvented the court ban by moving the conference to a third university in the city.