Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
March 30 2005
`I Know What You did in 1915′
View: Jan SOYKOK (JTW)- Armenians accused the Turks of killing the
Armenians in the past. Strangely they are not sure about how many
Armenians killed by the Turks. Some Armenian `researchers’ say 1
million, another says 2 million. Even Armenians in Wales claimed the
total number is more than 2,5 million, while more fair Armenians
`accept’ 800,000. For an ordinary Armenian Turks committed a genocide
in 1915 against the Armenians, and this has to be accepted by the
Turks. However the Turks think different:
First of all they have strongly rejected `genocide allegations’. They
argue that the total population of all Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire was about 1 million and 90 percent of them immigrated to other
countries or to other Ottoman cities, including Istanbul.
Nilgun Gulcan for instance is one of the `deniers’:
`1915 events cannot be labeled as a genocide or state-organized
massacre. First, only 10,000 Armenians were killed in the ethnic
conflicts between Kurdish and Armenian groups and none of the attacks
was organized by the state or state officers. More than 100,000
Armenians died in this period as a result of famine and epidemic
diseases. In 1915 the Ottoman Empire was at heart of a war. The state
was under attacks from Russia, Britain, France and their allies. The
Armenian armed groups rioted. The Istanbul Government could not
suppressed the riots and more than 500,000 Muslim Ottoman citizens
were massacred by the Armenians. All these events can be named as a
genocide committed against Muslims by the Armenian racists. The
extreme Armenians wanted to establish a separate state and they
relied on the foreign countries. However France, Russians and British
forces did not keep their promises in helping the Armenians. They
failed. They tried to take revenge from the Turks instead of
establishing a safe home in Caucasus. The 1917 Revolution granted the
Armenians an independent state. Yet they preferred revenge and
established a terror organization NEMESIS. NEMESIS organized
terrorists attacks and assassination against Turkish statesmen,
diplomats and officials. As a result they killed innocent statesmen
and diplomats but at the same time they lost their independency.’
Similarly Davut Sahiner says `Armenians focus on revenge and blood
instead of co-operation and dialogue: Sahiner adds:
`Armenia is a small country and the number of Armenians in the region
is so small. Under these circumstances they need good relations with
the neighbors and the last thing they need is conflict and tension.
Moreover if they open the history, they will lose more. What they did
in 1915 is a clear genocide against the Turks and Kurds. However they
accuse the victims. The diaspora manipulates the Western public
opinion. But this cannot last forever. There was an armed riot and
armed attacks against the Government and the Muslim civilians. The
Armenian propagandists abuse the past, abuse their history.’
We now know what the Armenians did in 1915. They just accuse the
others, but do not question their past.
JTW, 30 March 2005