As Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accuses Russia of “ethnic cleansing” in northern Syria, an article by Kurt Nimmo published by reminds Turkey about its own history.
“Russia is trying to make ethnic cleansing in northern Latakia to force (out) all Turkmen and Sunni population who do not have good relations with the regime,” Davutoglu said during a news conference in Istanbul.
“They want to expel them, they want to ethnically cleanse this area so that the regime [of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] and Russian bases in Latakia and Tartus are protected,” he added.
Davutoglu also said targeting the supplies lines of Turkish supported jihadi groups will benefit the Islamic State.
“Davutoglu’s accusation ignores the fact the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey more or less pioneered modern genocide and ethnic cleansing in 1915 when it slaughtered between 800,000 and 1.5 million Armenians. The state rounded up and massacred able-bodied males, deported women and children, forced the elderly and infirm to participate in death marches into the Syrian desert, and starved, robbed and raped Turkish Armenians. Christian ethnic groups such as the Assyrians and the Ottoman Greeks were also targeted for extermination,” the author writes.
“The Turkish government has denied it is responsible for the Armenian Genocide. It insists the extermination was the result of deportations during World War One despite the fact the genocide continued until 1923, years after the end of the war,” the article reads.
The author notes that Turkey is also accused of ethnically cleansing Kurds in the 1980s and 1990s. It forcibly emigrated over two million people and destroyed approximately 6,000 Kurdish villages.
“Considering the track record of Turkey in regard to the genocide of Armenians and later the Kurds, Davutoglu’s remarks are at best disingenuous,” the author concludes.