YUSUF HALACOGLI."IN 1936-37 STATE REVEALED EACH FAMILY OF CONVERTED ARMENIANS AND MADE A LIST"
By Hakob Chaqrian
AZG Armenian Daily #152
24/08/2007
Scandal in Turkey
On August 18, Yusuf Halacogli, chairman of Turkish Historical
Union, stated that "the Kurds have Turkmen origin, while the Kurdish
Alavinians are of "Armenian" origin, and there are many Armenians among
them who support TIKKO and PKK terrorist organizations, trying hard to
make a split in the country. This statement aroused the indignation
of the Kurds, Alavinians, progressive Turkish intelligentsia,
public-political figures, who demanded from Prime Minister Erdoghan
to fire Halacogli.
This confrontation forced Halacogli make some corrections Thus, he
said in the interview to "Radical" on August 20 that he didn’t deny
the existence of Kurds in Turkey. "But 30% of those who consider
themselves Kurds are Turkmens by origin, while the Alavinians
make 99%. In the course of the exile in 1915, many Armenians began
representing themselves as Alavie Kurds.
Fort example, some of the Alavie Kurds from Tunceli Ovacek regions
and Svaz are Armenians by origin. But this doesn’t mean that all
of the Alavi Kurds are Armenians by origin. Moreover, most of the
Armenians who converted into Kurds are not sincere from religious
point of view. They often tried to build churches. In 1936-37,
the state reveled all of the Armenian families who converted into
Kurds and registered their addresses. I can prove my statements by
documents. I have the list of converted Armenians at my disposal,"
he said. While, in response to the question of the newspaper when he
is going to publish the list of the converted Armenians, he said he
isn’t going to publish anything, as the printed press violated the
facts. He added that he just said that some of the Alavies are just
converted Armenians.
Moreover, he said that Hrant Dink also said that some of the Kurds
are of Armenians origin. "I am just interested who is a Turk and who
is a Kurd. These facts are just result of my personal investigation
based on my studies in the USA," he said. At the same time, he didn’t
specify the number of the converted Armenians.
On August 23, "Radical’ wrote that till recently the National Committee
for National Minorities was functioning in Turkey. According to the
newspaper, the main task of the committee was to spoil the life of
the non-Muslim national minorities in Turkey, forcing them to leave
the country. ‘In the course of the committee’s functioning the number
of the non-Muslim communities decreased in Turkey. Nevertheless,
this didn’t hinder our country to prosecute the Armenian families who
converted into Muslims in order to survive in the exile and murders of
1915. That’s why, Halacogli speaks of the state investigations on the
converted Armenians in 1936, then he says that he updated the lists
himself recently. We wander why the state investigation was carried
out and why the results weren’t published until now. Perhaps, this
factor is conditioned by the approach of checking the trustworthiness
of the persons to be appointed to high ranked positions by their
ethnic origin," the newspaper underscored.
In the August 22 issue of "Bianet’ agency, criticizing Halacogli,
publisher Racep Zarakogli, wrote that the party of Young Turks made
such investigations in the years of the World War I, to check who
they can assimilate to create a unanimous nation.
According to Zarakogli, the Young Turks instructed Esat Urasli make the
investigation , who wrote "Armenians in the History and the Armenian
Cause" book, later. He stated in his "Bank Ottoman" work that the
Turks can assimilate with the Kurds, but the Armenians will never
assimilate, that’s why they should be neutralized.
As for the recent statement by Halacoghli, Zarakogli considered that
a total failure of the Turkish official historical studies.