Turkish Archives should be opened

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| 15:07:56 | 26-04-2005 | Politics |

TURKISH ARCHIVES SHOULD BE OPENED

«I am convinced that Kemal Pasha had a Black Book, which contained the
places and number of people exiled. Without the opening of the Turkish
archives the Genocide of 1915 is the same what the Holocaust without German
documents is», Professor Richard Hovhannisyan stated today at the seminar
entitled «Armenian Genocide. 90 years».

The historian stressed that it should be clarified whether the Genocide was
perpetrated in 1915-1921 or it started earlier, in 1886, under Sultan Amid.
The clarification of this question will help to determine the exact number
of victims. Professor Hovhannisyan does not share the opinion that the
documents referring to the Armenian Genocide were eliminated in the Turkish
archives lone ago. «To date Taleat Pasha’s documents are used in different
books and editions. One of them says, «Do not exile the rest of the
Christians». Here a question arouses. Who were not exiled and not exiled
Christians? » he says.

In the opinion of Richard Hovhannisyan we yield to Turkey in propaganda.
«When you open the website of the Turkish Embassy in the US you can see that
it is filled with the materials on Khodjalu events while our website is
empty», he noted.

Outcomes of the public survey held by the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies on the occasion of the 90-th anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide were also presented at the seminar. 1900 Armenian citizens
took part in the survey. The purpose of the survey was to find out the
awareness and attitude of the Armenian people towards the Genocide issue. 2
of the 40 questions referred to the Karabakh conflict and its settlement.
Most respondents marked the direct connection between the Genocide and the
Karabakh problem.