TURKS IN WALES PROTEST ‘GENOCIDE’ MEMORIAL
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 10 2007
Turks living in the United Kingdom took action upon learning that
a memorial for the memory of the victims of the so-called Armenian
"genocide" at the hands of the Ottoman Empire would be erected in front
of the Temple of Peace in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, on Nov. 3.
In a letter to the archbishop of Wales and the Welsh Center of
International Peace, the British-Turkish Associations Federation
mentioned that the Armenian allegations of genocide were baseless and
that they, as Turkish citizens, were very sad that a memorial was to
be erected confirming the Armenian defamations.
The federation noted that the Armenian allegations of genocide had
not been verified by historians and that there is not consensus in
the international community about terming the incidents during the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire "genocide."
The federation’s letter acknowledged that some measures were taken
during the chaotic environment of 1915 to cut the support of Armenian
groups to enemy countries and that Armenians were dispatched to certain
regions under the framework of these measures. "Recognition of these
baseless allegations as ‘genocide’ will contradict the policy of the
Welsh Center of International Peace, which deemed peace a mission
for itself. Hence, we propose that you work together and search for
facts instead of admitting these allegations," the letter said. In the
letter it was also stressed that the Armenian allegations of genocide
were not even supported by world-famous historians such as Bernard
Lewis, Norman Stone, Justin McCarty, Stanford Shaw, David Fromkin,
Michael Gunter, Kamuran Gurun and Giller Veinstein.