Hürriyetim
25.09.2005

Gul: Turkish people are at peace with their history
Istanbul

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul sent a message to the opening session of the
Armenian conference on Saturday:”The Turkish people are at peace with
themselves and with our history,” he added that, ”the approaches of our
government and our people towards our past, including Turkish-Armenian
relations, constitute an indication of our confidence in ourselves and our
future.”
In his message, Gul said, ”the last era of the Ottoman Empire is subject to
discussion and research in academic circles, with increased interest. Nearly
every day new documents from the era emerge and new books, articles and
research papers are published. Yet, it is not possible to say that all data
and documents related to those times have been properly analyzed. With an
aim to help redress this shortcoming, our government is in the process of
taking important steps to enable the Ottoman Archives to serve researchers,
in modern conditions. Our Archives have begun to serve scientists through
documents converted to a digital medium since 2003. Within this context,
many researchers, coming from 75 different countries have completed their
research on the Ottoman Archives. These activities are ongoing.”

”We want not only our own archives but at the same time all other archives
that will shed light on the history of the day to be opened in an organized
fashion, that will serve all researchers. We believe that deeper research
into that era will bring new historical facts to light and serve an
improvement in relations between countries and peoples. Thus, we have
proposed to the Government of Armenia to establish a historical commission
between our two countries, which will research the joint Turkish-American
history and which will make its findings public. We hope to reach a
conclusion on this subject,” indicated Gul.

Gul also said, ”The history of Turkish-Armenian relations is one of
co-existence and common life of almost 1,000 years. During the course of
this period, the Turkish and Armenian peoples have contributed to each
other’s culture, prosperity and security. We should not ignore this reality
when we examine the tragic period when the Ottoman Empire was crumbling and
the Turks and Armenians were deeply suffering, like all other peoples of the
Empire.”

”It is a fact that in some chapters of history, or even today, some
societies cannot tolerate one other’s language, religion, identity or even
very existence. It is an unfortunate reality that such intolerance can turn
into a deep-rooted and destructive ideology, which gets ingrained in the
social subconscious. Some serious and very dangerous trends, from xenophobia
to racism and from anti-Semitism to attitudes against Muslims are present
and are on the rise today, even in societies which represent the highest
level of contemporary civilization,” underlined Gul.

Gul stressed, ”it is a source of pleasure that such a psychology does not
exist between the Turks and Armenians. This also constitutes a major
advantage for the future of relations between the two peoples.”

”Another issue I want to draw your attention to is that, many studies so
far held on the theme of the Conference, particularly outside Turkey, have
been conducted with political motivations, in a manner inconsistent with
scientific ethics and objectivity. Regretfully, humanitarian issues have
been sacrificed to political designs, and double standards have been applied
in determining and presenting human suffering. There were attempts to impose
subjective, non-legal and artificial claims upon Turkey and the Turkish
people, with political motivations. Furthermore, there have been situations
in which some foreign circles could not even tolerate scientific
skepticism,” said Gul.

Gul concluded, ”young generations from all nations must know and draw
lessons from the facts that during the last era of the Ottoman Empire the
imperialist-colonial powers ruthlessly exploited peoples’ ethno-religious
sensitivities for their own gains and that some elements, knowingly or
unknowingly, became instruments to these provocations. I hope that your
Conference will be a contribution to raise awareness on this issue. The
Turkish people is at peace with itself and with its history. The approaches
of our government and our people towards our past, including
Turkish-Armenian relations, constitute an indication of our confidence in
ourselves and our future. I convey my best wishes to all participants and
hope that the Conference will be a success.”