Zaman on Line
05.15.2005 Sunday
ISTANBUL 04:23
ERHAN BASYURT
05.15.2005 Sunday – ISTANBUL 04:23
Genocide Claims and Mr. Oskanyan!
The so-called Armenian “genocide” allegations are on the agenda again.
Turkey has been slandered for 90 years through an unfair and partial
propaganda.
I say unfair because the Armenians do not use of any legal channels they
have but only try to pressure Turkey politically.
Unfortunately, Turkey ignored revealing the facts for many long years.
Statements made from time to time were not satisfactory. For the first time,
the government, the opposition and parliament, with one voice, are
challenging these baseless allegations. There were similar attempts in the
past; however, these were done by diplomats or scientists, solely on their
own.
Turkey invited a commission consisting Turkish and Armenian historians to
investigate the issue in detail by opening the Ottoman as well as military
archives. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to Armenian
President Robert Kocharian calling for the establishment of a “commission of
historians.” The Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) sent a letter to the
British House of Commons asking it to declare that the “Blue Book” written
by Arnold Tonybee, which supports Armenian allegations, is a product of
propaganda.
Tonybee himself confesses that the book is a propaganda product. Britain had
prepared a similar book during World War I against the Germans. The reason
behind this was to make things difficult for Turkey and Germany in the
international arena, to get US support during the war and to prepare the
ground for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and hence, establish two
Armenian states in Anatolia.
Prof. Hikmet Ozdemir who is conducting researches on the Armenian issue at
the Turkish Institute of History (TTK) revealed in his interview published
in Aksiyon Weekly News Magazine that around 1914, just before World War I,
Britain prepared some maps that gave Izmir to the Greeks, established the
Armenian Kingdom of Celicia around Cukurova and an Armenian Republic in Van.
Ozdemir has proven these with original documents written at that time. It is
also a fact that Russia incited the Armenians in eastern Anatolia.
It is also known that Armenians started to seek new ideals, incite many
rebellions, murder many Muslims and sabotage military deliveries under the
influence of nationalism and with external support. As a result, the Ottoman
Empire implemented forced emigration against the Armenians. This
implementation known as “Emigration” took place in 1915 and it was also
applied by many countries in the world including the US and Russia. It is a
fact that many people lost their lives during the emigration; there were
serious tragic events due to attacks by gangs and epidemics. But if it is
taken into account that over 400,000 Ottoman soldiers also died from
epidemics in the same period, and those who were responsible for these
deaths were tried and punished, it will be better understood that these
deaths and tragedies were not intentional but resulted from the helplessness
of the Ottoman Empire.
Erdogan and the calls he made in parliament are very important because of
this reason. The Armenians, who do not have any proof to back their
“genocide” claims, are not comfortable with this call. Just as Armenian
Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan said to the Mediamax News Agency: “Turkey
is not only trying to rewrite its own history from the beginning in a
disrespectful manner, but it also trying to encourage other countries to do
likewise.”
Why does Armenia, which has been involved in ethnic cleansing acts in
Nagorno-Karabakh and has forced over 1,000,000 Azeris out of their own
lands, oppose the establishment of a commission of historians and opening of
the Armenian state archives and those of the Tasnak Party? It is because
they are afraid that their stabbing of the Ottomans in the back, by
cooperating with the Russians and the British, and also the fact that the
emigration implemented by Ottoman Empire was not genocide, but a
precautionary measure, will be revealed.
If it were the reverse, Oskanyan would not have wasted his breath but would
have used his unilateral right to apply to the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) with the documents that he has.