Key stages of the Armenian ‘genocide’

Agence France Presse — English
April 22, 2005 Friday 2:35 AM GMT

YEREVAN April 22 — On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turk government
arrested hundreds of Armenian community leaders and intellectuals in
eastern Anatolia.

Over the course of the following two years, according to Armenian
authorities, some 1.5 million Armenians were killed and many others
deported by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in what Armenia views as
an act of genocide.

Here are some key stages in the mass killing which Turkey denies was
a genocide.

– July, 1914: The Ottoman authorities create a task force comprised
of violent criminals released from prisons around Anatolia who will
escort hundreds of thousands of Armenians along their brutal forced
marches through the Der El Zor desert.

– August 1, 1914: World War I breaks out pitting the Ottoman and
Austrian empires against Europe’s great powers; almost immediately
Turkish forces suffer a great defeat at the hands of Russia and turn
their efforts to the “internal enemy.”

– April 24, 1915: Hundreds of Armenians arrested, many later killed.
Date is viewed by Armenia as start of systematic effort by Ottoman
Turks to eradicate Armenian people. Orders are soon drafted to
deport the Armenian population of eastern Anatolia through the Der
El Zor desert.

– 1916: By this time most of the Ottoman empire’s Armenian population
of 3.2 million had either died or fled to Mesopotamia or present-day
Armenia, where they fortified and were later to declare independence.
Today, only 40,000 Armenians continue to reside in Turkey.

– May 28, 1918: Incorporating territories granted to it by Russian
conquest, Armenia declares independence.

– November, 1918: World War I Armistice signed; as Western powers vie
to dismember the Ottoman empire it is reorganized by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk into the modern Turkish state.

– September – December, 1920: Armenia resists fresh Turkish attacks
commanded by Ataturk in the Turkish-Armenian war; losing much territory
Armenia signs a peace treaty but is immediately incorporated into
the Soviet state.

– October 13, 1921: Armenia’s present day borders are confirmed
as a Soviet republic by the treaty of Kars, signed by the Soviets
and Turkey.

– 1975: The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia,
a guerrilla group responsible for the death of a number of Turkish
diplomats, is formed. Now defunct, ASALA sought to force the Turkish
government to admit to the Genocide.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress