Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 17 2007
TTK President Halaçoðlu responds to Sarafian’s claims
President of the Turkish Historical Society (TTK) Yusuf Halaçoðlu
said Armenian historian Ara Sarafian was disturbed by the institute’s
initiative to study the archives of Tashnak, the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation political party founded during the Ottoman
Empire that now operates throughout the Armenian diaspora.
In a television program he participated in, Halaçoðlu said that they
would have to investigate all archives including the Tashnak
archives. `Between 1989 and 1992 I was in charge of those archives. I
categorized them. Obviously I know which documents are included in
the files. As Sarafian claims, there aren’t documents about each
village and each neighborhood. There are collective documents. There
are documents about how many Armenians were transferred from Elazýð,
where they went, and how long they stayed,’ Halaçoðlu said.
`If they are not in the Ottoman archives, they might be in the
patriarchate archives. Let’s study them. Why are they hesitant to
open those archives?’ Halaçoðlu asked. `There is someone that does a
lot of research there. He would know if such information could be
found in them. I said I didn’t know of such a list. Surely, if there
is, then we can research it together. But why is he backing away? Why
is he giving up the study because of what I said without even doing
any research?’
The TTK president claimed that Sarafian is interested in finding a
list of Armenians living in the region because he wants to file for
property rights. Halaçoðlu, who is not authorized to limit access to
archives, said `I am a researcher, I am not on the archives
administrative board.’
Recalling that Sarafian had launched a study in 1991 when Halaçoðlu
was the president of the Ottoman archives, Halaçoðlu said he gave
3,000 photocopies to the Armenian historian.
`Doesn’t Sarafian know what happened in the region? He does. He is
just trying to do demagoguery. What I said was very clear. I said our
research should not include only the Ottoman archives but every other
archive as well. I think our desire to research the Armenian and
Tashnak archives made them hesitant because in those archives there
are documents detailing what they did in Tashnak. For example, the
names of countries they cooperated with and bought weapons from,
which operation they launched and the names of people they killed.’
Halaçoðlu said Sarafian was trying to create a commotion instead of
cooperating with them. `Their cooperative stance seems like a
response to our recent attempts to conduct research,’ Halaçoðlu said.
`This is a serious institute. We invite everyone to be serious. I
don’t want to start a job by getting into polemics. If he really
wants to do research or wants to resolve this problem then he can
apply directly to us. We can decide the format of the research and
plan out a strategy.’
Recalling that Sarafyan believes 12,000 Armenians were killed in the
region, Halaçoðlu said that he welcomed any serious research to be
conducted regarding the issue.