Turkey to open archives for probe into alleged WWI genocide

Xinhua General News Service, China
March 9, 2005 Wednesday 9:30 AM EST

ANKARA — Turkey is to open its archives for historians in a bid to
fight against Armenia’s allegation of genocide during World War I,
private NTV reported Wednesday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the statement after
a meeting on Tuesday with Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition
Republican People’s Party (CHP).

“We will open our archives to those people who claim there was a
genocide. Teams of historians from both sides should conduct studies
in these archives,” he said.

Such a study should be carried out by historians from both Turkey
and Armenia, Erdogan said at a press conference following the meeting.

Erdogan said there should be an unbiased and impartial study into
allegations that the Ottoman Empire carried out acts of genocide
against the empire’s Armenian citizens during World War I.

Baykal, on his part, said the allegation being levelled at Turkey
was part of a deliberate campaign against the country.

Turkey has always denied that the Armenians were subjected to genocide
in the period between 1915 and 1923. However, it does acknowledge
that up to 300,000 Armenians, and an even higher number of Muslims,
died during fightings and Ottoman’s efforts to relocate populations
away from the war zone in eastern Turkey.

Armenian claims up to 1.5 million Armenians died in the period as a
result of systematic genocide.