TURKEY URGES OPENING OF ARMENIAN ARCHIVE
United Press International UPI
May 21 2008
Turkey has offered $20 million to open an Armenian archive in the
United States, claiming documents there will support its version of
the 1915 massacre.
Yusuf Halacoglu, head of the state-funded Turkish Historical Society,
told Hurriyet the archive in Boston includes important documents on
the events of 1915.
Halacoglu said he had been told the archives cannot be opened because
they need proper cataloging.
"This would directly open a debate over the genocide claims," he
said. "Armenians are aware of this and therefore they are doing their
best not to sit at the table."
Armenians and most non-Turkish scholars of the period say 1.5 million
Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and generally label
the deaths genocide — a term the Turkish government disputes. The
official Turkish version is that about 300,000 Armenians and 300,000
Turks were killed in an Armenian bid for independence.
About 50,000 Armenians remain in Turkey.