IAGS PRESIDENT TO SARKISIAN, ERDOGAN: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT MUST BE FIRST STEP

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October 12, 2009

On Oct. 8, William Schabas, the president of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), addressed an open letter to
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian President
Serge Sarkisian, in which he said: "Acknowledgement of the Armenian
Genocide must be the starting point of any ‘impartial historical
commission,’ not one of its possible conclusions."

Below is the full text of the letter, acquired by the Armenian Weekly.

***

Dear Prime Minister Erdogan and President Sarkisian, The proposed
protocols between Armenia and Turkey call for an "impartial historical
commission" to investigate what the world knows as the Armenian
Genocide of 1915.

As the leading scholarly organization engaged in the study of genocide,
we welcome continued investigation that will enhance our understanding
of the 1915 massacres. However, we are extremely wary of any call
for allegedly impartial research into what are clearly established
historical facts.

Acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide must be the starting point
of any "impartial historical commission," not one of its possible
conclusions. The world would not accept an inquiry into the truth
of the Nazi Holocaust, or the extermination of the Tutsi in Rwanda,
and nor can it do so with the genocide of the Armenians.

William Schabas, President, International Association of Genocide
Scholars