ANKARA: ‘Turkish Republic cannot be held responsible for events of19

Turkish Daily News
March 9 2005

>>From the columns
Wednesday, March 9, 2005

‘Turkish Republic cannot be held responsible for events of 1915’:

Also on the alleged Armenian genocide, Milliyet’s Derya Sazak
comments on the Monday interview with history professor Halil
Berktay, whose opinions about the alleged Armenian genocide issue are
controversial in Turkey. Sazak says some readers reacted to the
interview and said Berktay’s insistence on identifying the events of
1915-1916 as “ethnic cleansing” was falsified by the state archives.

Sazak says, “It is clear that some thousands of people died during
the removal of Armenians from eastern Anatolia, though we don’t
identify it as ‘genocide’,” adding: “The events led to the death of
not only Armenians but also Turks and Kurds. But who can put the
blame on the Turkish Republic just because it is the ‘successor’ of
the Ottoman Empire?”

“Despite the intolerance of some ultra-nationalist circles,
Berktay’s opinions provide significant propositions that will help
Turkey tackle the problem,” Sazak says.

Also commenting on the same issue, Yeni ªafak’s Akif Emre says the
British Parliament’s assessment of the events of 1915-1916 as
genocide cannot be analyzed without considering the international
relations of the time when the book framing the Parliament’s
understanding of the issue, titled “The Treatment of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916,” was published.

Noting a book of prominent English historian Arnold J. Toynbee
(1889-1975) that was recently published in Turkey, Emre says that as
the assistant of Lord Bryce, who edited the book, Toynbee was
explaining the international political environment in which the
Ottoman Empire appeared to attain an advantageous position.

Emre also claims that Toynbee asserted that the publishing of that
book by Bryce was the result of politics and that the book was
intended as propaganda.

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