Agos Weekly, Istanbul
Dec 31 2009

The long-sought document is found

Yusuf HalaçoÄ?lu is one of the people that have made the greatest
contributions to this country in recent years. As we learned from his
speech in Adana, this modest historian of ours has single-handedly
produced the database that made the signing of a protocol agreement
between Turkey and Armenia possible.

He relieved our official bodies by purchasing, for five hundred
dollars, 3200 documents held by Russia, and paved the way for forming
a `historical commission.’ Turkey has been understandably quite
anxious about this `historical commission.’ There may have been a fear
that the debates might lead to `genocide,’ and that Turkish and
Armenian historians might even agree on this issue. On the other hand,
we understand that the Ottoman archives fail to prove the
non-existence of genocide. Otherwise, this dear historian would not
have to pay five hundred dollars in vain, but could instead have used
the documents at his fingertips.

Do not assume that the documents in question are ordinary ones.
HalaçoÄ?lu stated that they should have been destroyed after reading,
but that he kept them. Why do you think Russians kept them for all
these years? Perhaps they thought they might sell them to a true
historian one day in future. Anyway, the important thing is that we,
as the nation, ultimately have 3200 documents proving that the
genocide did not take place, but that just the opposite of that was
true.

By simple division, the cost of one of the documents comes to 15.6
cents. But remember that HalaçoÄ?lu made this investment during the
1990s. It was almost 15 years ago even in the median¦ Taking the
annual interest on the dollar to be five percent, it comes to 108
percent in a compound interest calculation. When we add 10 percent
profit, the current value of the 3200 documents comes to 1090 dollars.

Honestly, as Agos, we would feel bad if we did not give a hand to this
fine attempt. This is why we made the calculation. We suggest that we
pay 1090 dollars to HalaçoÄ?lu and print those documents in our paper
one by one. Then Armenians would gain knowledge and the state of
Turkey would gain self-confidence.

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