ARMENIAN DIASPORA CALLS ON TURKEY TO OPEN BORDER AND ARCHIVES

19:11, 31 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Delegates of the 4th Congress of Western Armenians released a list
of demands from the Turkish Republic in Paris on Sunday, including
the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border and providing unlimited
access to historical archives, Today’s Zaman reports.

The descendants of Armenians who were living and persecuted during
the Ottoman Empire have made the following demands of the Turkish
government: “Open the Turkish border with the Republic of Armenia
immediately and without preconditions and initiate a number of steps
for the establishment of interstate confidence and friendly relations
with the authorities and population of the Armenian state, among whom
live hundreds of thousands of descendants of Western Armenians.”

The delegation also called for unlimited access to historical
archives from the Ottoman Empire, stating this is “necessary for the
re-establishment of the rights of Western Armenians. This should
include all cadastre and civil state archives, in addition to all
information related to our moral and material losses (damages incurred
whether pecuniary or non-pecuniary) and relevant rights.”

On March 19, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the
Armenian diaspora, saying: “Oh, Armenian diaspora, oh, Armenian
administration, our archives are here. We have hundreds of thousands
of documents, over a million documents. How many documents do you
have? Bring your documents, and we will task the historians, our
historians, political scientists, even archeologists and lawyers
[with studying them]… let’s seek the truth here,” he said, adding
that “anti-Turkey campaigns carried out by paying money and forming
lobbies will not earn you anything.”

The memorandum published by the Armenian congress also called for
the recognition of the National Congress of Western Armenians as a
legal entity in Turkey, and that it is the indisputable right for the
Armenian ethnic entity to return to their homeland and rehabilitate
all community properties such as schools and churches.