Facts « Page 5

Turkey Writes

March 11, 2005
Armenian FM Oskanyan: “There is no need to discuss with the Turkish historians”
Jan SOYKOK – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Opposition Party CHP’s Ledar Deniz Baykal called Armenia and Armenians to open their archives and to make negotiations on Armenian issue. Turkish PM said on Tuesday ” We have already opened our archives to those who claim there was a genocide. If they are sincere, they should also open theirs. This would allow historians to work on documents on both sides… Teams of historians from both sides should conduct studies in these archives… We do not want future generations to have a difficult life because of hatred and resentment.” However Armenian side says there is no need to discuss the Armenian allegations, because they are already proven. Armenian Foreign Minister Oskanyan said the problem is political and Armenia does not need to discuss the ‘genocide’ argument with the Turkish side. Oskanyan claimed the historians had made their all studies and they do not need make any more study. However the Turkish historians and many American and British researchers do not agree with the pro-Armenian historians. Many historians from the US and Europe including Prof. Dr. Justin McCarthy and Prof. Dr. Stanford Shaw says the 1915 events cannot be considered as ‘genocide’.
Vartan Oskanyan said they have made clear their stance on the issue. Saying that they had already stated the findings of their historians, Oskanyan added:
“Turkey should put forward their case. There is nothing left for historians to do.”
Turkish PM Erdogan called on Tuesday for an impartial study by historians of Armenian claims that their people suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turkish troops during and after World War One. Erdogan said that Turkey was ready to face this issue and Turkish Government is sincere. The Armenian response has disappointed Ankara. The AK party Government has made efforts to normalize the relations with Armenia. The AK party politicians say if Armenia take small steps, Turkey will response with great steps.
Armenians claim that at least 1.5 million of their kinfolk were murdered during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. However the number of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire was less than 1.3 million. Turkey has never accepted the Armenian allegations and argued that Armenian armed groups during the First World War killed about 500,000 Turkish and Kurdish people. Turkish officials and historians accept that thousands of Armenians were also killed during the war and uprisings due to the ethnic conflicts between Kurdish and Armenian groups, epidemic diseases and bad weather and war circumstances. More than 200.000 Armenians died due to the bad weather, epidemic diseases and famine under the Tashnak Armenian rule in Armenia in 1919.

Armenia Proves

Let’s start from a very vantage point. From this article it is clear that Turkey wants to present the fact of the Armenian genocide as a controversial issue that still needs a “scientific debate”. I think that’s quite identical for their mentality. Turkey is just playing the skillful political games of their Ottoman predecessors. Turkey’s current masters present their country under various guises and have changed their policy concerning Armenian genocide and its denial. These all is followed by statements mentioned in this article (and not only here, whole media is soaking with such announcements) like “We do not want future generations to have a difficult life because of hatred and resentment, we want diplomatic relations, Turkey’s government is sincere” and other moderate political weightless statements.

In this article Turkey claims that Armenian archives are closed for conducting studies and doing researches, but the truth and the fact is that RA National Archives are OPEN for researches and a free access to them is 100% provided. As a matter of fact Turkish students come to Armenia quite often and do a lot of research on those archives, under a “university assignment” cover. Everyone can contact RA National Archive and make and official inquiry that they give free access to anyone who is interested.

The only archives that are “closed” are “Dashnakcutyun” political party’s archives, which are kept in Boston. But this doesn’t have anything to do with National Archives, am I right?

As for the “Ottoman archives being open”, I will strongly disagree, because they are actually aren’t that “open”…

Let me start from a little far and get to the point:

First, few years ago, Armenian “GOMIDAS” institute located in London, UK, led by Armenian historian Ara Sarafyan agreed with historians in Turkey led by the head of the Turkish Historical Society, Yusuf Halaçoğlu to cooperate on joint research projects. Ara Sarafyan offered to begin a case study of the events of 1915 and the fate of Armenians in the Harput region of the Ottoman Empire, as Turkey claims that Armenians were simply deported from that region and so many people died because of the bad conditions and diseases on the way. So, Turkish official thesis maintains that the deportations of 1915 were an orderly affair and all relevant records on those deportations can still be found in Ottoman archives in Turkey. According to the formal administration of deportations, there should be lists of all deportees, village by village, person by person, showing when people were deported, where they were sent, and how they were resettled. There should be records of their original properties and how they were compensated at their places of exile.Ara Sarafyan suggested to allow historians in Turkey to submit relevant Ottoman records regarding the deportation and resettlement of Armenians from this area. Dr. Halaçoğlu would present Ottoman records which detail how deportations were implemented in Harput and its surrounding villages. He will show deportation records, family by family and village by village, accounting for the deportation and resettlement of each village from the Harput area.

Later on, Dr. Yusuf Halaçoğluannounced that vital Ottoman records on the 1915 deportation of Armenians–including in Harput–do not exist in Turkish archives today. On Monday 26 February 2007 Dr. Halaçoğlu appeared on CNN- Turk’s “Manşet” programme where he stated, categorically, that the Ottoman records the Gomidas Institute had asked to examine did not exist. Halaçoğlu stated that : “He [Sarafian] well knows about the archives. He also knows that there are no records for each village listing persons by name. There are no such records. If there were, they would not pose a problem for us. It would be better to produce them.”⁴ To date Dr. Halaçoğlu has not contacted and explained himself to the Gomidas Institute. Dr. Halaçoğlu’s statement only raises some fundamental questions:

1. Were Ottoman regulations on the 1915 deportations implemented according to the letter of the law? If so, why are we told that the registers related to this mass transfer of people are missing? Are all records missing, for the whole Empire, in both local as well as central archives?

2. If these regulations were not implemented, how was the movement of Armenians, the liquidation of their properties, and the resettlement of deportees regulated? Is it conceivable that none of these regulations were implemented for the whole of the Ottoman Empire from Erzeroum to Yozgat, Izmit and Kayseri? If so, where is the archival trail in Ottoman archives associated with the actual course of events?

3. Is it possible that no records were kept for either deportation or resettlement? If so, was this the case for the whole of the Ottoman Empire, and why were no records kept?

And we can go on and on.

And Turkey still loudly speaks about Armenians not opening their archives, while Turks need to explain themselves…