MHP DEMANDS TO KNOW IF GOV’T WILL TRANSFER LAND TO ARMENIANS

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
January 22, 2015 Thursday

Ä°STANBUL (CÄ°HAN)- A leading opposition figure has claimed that the
government is preparing to offer some land to Armenians as the 100th
anniversary of the mass deportation of Armenians from Anatolia by the
Ottoman State approaches.

“I know the AKP [ruling Justice and Development (AK Party)] has an
ongoing project [on the issue]. A professor has been advising and
working on the transfer of land to Armenians who will be brought to
Turkey,” Oktay Vural, deputy chairman of the Nationalist Movement
Party (MHP), told Today’s Zaman.

Noting that the Armenian diaspora claims as their own the land of the
former presidential residence in Ankara and some land in Ä°stanbul’s
YeÅ~_ilköy district, Vural demanded to know if it was a coincidence that
the government earlier said Ä°stanbul Ataturk Airport in the city’s
YeÅ~_ilköy district would be removed.

The former presidential residence, known as Cankaya presidential
palace, was in service until President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was
elected president in August last year.

Erdogan lives instead in a recently built presidential palace, while
the former presidential residence will be, Erdogan previously said,
allocated to the Prime Ministry.

Vural said: “Will [Ä°stanbul] Ataturk Airport and Cankaya presidential
palace be given to meet the demands of the Armenian diaspora? Is it a
coincidence that they are being evacuated at this particular
juncture?”

Armenians, as well as more than 20 countries and 41 states in the US,
accept the deportation of Armenians that began in April of 1915 as
genocide.

Armenians and some Turkish historians usually claim that around 1
million Armenians — according to some, 800,000, and to others, 1.5
million — lost their lives during the deportation, while various
Turkish sources, who maintain that the term genocide cannot be used in
this particular case, claim that the death toll was around 60,000.

According to Vural, the issue should be left for historians to
discuss. Taking steps to legitimize demands by Armenians for land and
reparations would lead to the trial of history, Vural said,
underlining that the issue should be kept outside the realm of
politics.

Such an attitude would render Turks into being slaves on their own
land, Vural maintained.

“Are we going to retry history by legitimizing the demands of those
who ask for Cankaya presidential palace and the Ataturk airport in
YeÅ~_ilköy? What will the AK Party say if some others demand to have
Ä°stanbul back saying it used to be called Constantinople?” Vural said.

He added: “Those who seek to bring old issues under the spotlight
should know that history cannot be undone by a political trial.”

Noting that some Turkish foundations used to have properties in Greek
Cyprus, which used to be part of the Ottoman Empire, Vural demanded to
know if the government would make a claim on those properties together
with those in the same category in Palestine.

Legitimizing Armenians’ demand for land and reparations would not
serve anybody’s interest, Vural said, warning that such a step would
be a heavy burden on those who took it.

Many scholars in Turkey say the deportation of Armenians was a
necessity as some of the Armenians in Eastern Anatolia collaborated
with Russian forces against the Ottoman army in fighting that took
place several months before the deportation began.

Ali Aslan Kılıc, Ankara