TURKISH HISTORIAN CONTRIVED HISTORY WITH EXCAVATION OF GRAVE OF MASS BURIAL OF ARMENIANS: EMINENT HISTORIAN OF ARMENIAN DIASPORA

Arminfo
2007-03-13 13:38:00

"There was never a discussion of excavating gravesites in Harput. This
pretension is contrived and spread in the Turkish Mass Media by the
Head of the Turkish Historical Society Yusuf Halacoglu", the Director
of Komitas Institute in London , an eminent historian of the Armenian
Diaspora Ara Sarafyan told ArmInfo. Commenting on the information,
spread in the Turkish press, about his alleged initial agreement and
then a refusal to participate in the excavation of gravesites in Harput
in Turkey, A. Sarafyan repeated that "there was never a discussion
of participation in this nitiative". "We proposed to undertake a
joint study with two parts, one concerning Ottoman deportation and
resettlement records and the other concerning other records, most
notable English, German and Armenian language materials", the Armenian
historian said, having noted that the Komitas Institute had asked
the Turkish Historical Society to give the archive materials about
the deportation of Armenians in 1915, in particular, from the Harput
plain. However, Y. Halacoglu made a statement about the non-existence
of the Ottoman records. "Nevertheless, "the non-existent" records
are directly related to two Ottoman decrees which Turkish official
historians have claimed regulated the deportation ad resettlement of
Ottoman Armenians in 1915. These were the May 30, 1915 regulations on
deportations and the June 10, 1915 regulations on the resettlement of
deportees, the liquidation of their properties and their compensation
in their places of exile. He added that it is not clear why the
Turkish historian could make such a categorical statement about the
non-existence of the Ottoman records we asked for, taking into account
the fact that there are many Ottoman archives in Turkey and not all
Ottoman records in these archives are catalogued.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress