STATEMENT OF THE SOCIETY FOR ARMENIAN STUDIES

AZG DAILY #24
12-02-2010

February 8, 2010

Regarding the Historical Sub-Commission in the Armenian-Turkish
Protocols

Following a vote at the November 21, 2009, meeting of the Society for
Armenian Studies (SAS), which called on the SAS Executive Council
to prepare a statement concerning the Historical Sub-Commission
in the Armenian-Turkish Protocols; and following a vote of the SAS
membership in support of the statement; the SAS Executive Council,
on behalf of the entire SAS membership, hereby issues the following
statement regarding the proposed Historical Sub-Commission:

The recently-signed Protocols between the Republic of Armenia and the
Republic of Turkey call for a sub-commission with the vaguely defined
task of looking into existing historical problems for an impartial
examination of historical records and archives. The stated purpose
is to restore mutual confidence between the two nations. Although
no express reference is made in the Protocols, there is an almost
universal agreement that the Turkish side would use the sub-commission
as a vehicle for perpetuating its denial of the Armenian Genocide
and casting doubt on the validity of the massive body of evidence
establishing it as genocide.

While the Turkish government, in keeping with a long-standing state
policy, continues to make every effort to question and deny the
veracity of the Armenian Genocide, President Serge Sargsyan has on a
number of occasions asserted that the Genocide and loss of Armenian
patrimony cannot be questioned; that the Genocide is a known truth
and must be recognized and condemned; and that the reality of the
Genocide can in no way become a subject of discussion as part of the
agenda of the sub-commission.

The Society for Armenian Studies hereby firmly states that the Armenian
Genocide is an undeniable fact, established through dispassionate,
meticulous, and multilingual archival research by a great number
of experts, most of whom belong to respectable scholarly bodies of
renowned authorities such as the International Association of Genocide
Scholars and our own Society for Armenian Studies. The veracity of
the Armenian Genocide cannot and must not be subject to discussion
or to political give and take.

The Society for Armenian Studies was founded in 1974 by a group of
scholars from the universities of California, Columbia and Harvard
on the initiative of Richard G. Hovannisian, Dickran Kouymjian, Nina
Garsoian, Avedis Sanjian, and Robert Thomson. It is dedicated to the
development of Armenian Studies as an academic discipline.

The SAS Secretariat is located at the Armenian Studies Program
of California State University, Fresno. For more information,
visit , e-mail
barlowd@csufresno.edu, or write to Armenian Studies Program,
California State University, Fresno, 5245 N Backer Ave. PB4, Fresno,
CA 93740-8001.