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Washington: Armenian Genocide deniers introduce “fake” Turkey-Armenia resolution

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Stop Turkifikation of Washington

In a highly offensive political move aimed at derailing H.Res.220, a bipartisan genocide prevention measure drawing upon the lessons of the Armenian Genocide, three of the U.S. House’s remaining enemies of Armenian Genocide remembrance have introduced “fake” legislation on Turkish-Armenian relations, controversially stripped of any mention of the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

“A sick and cynical ploy: historically inaccurate and morally offensive. All the world knows that any improvement in Armenian-Turkish relations will need to start with Ankara openly acknowledging the Armenian Genocide and accepting its modern-day responsibility for the vast moral and material consequences of this still unpunished crime,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA.

“Reps. Stivers, Cohen, and Sessions, – in stripping out language about the Armenian Genocide from a bill about Turkish-Armenian relations – are, effectively, carrying Turkish President Erdogan’s water in Washington, advancing his shameful denial campaign even as he’s doubling down on his government’s anti-American actions and attitudes.”

H.Res.573 was introduced by Ohio Congressman Steve Stivers (R-OH) with the support of Congressional Turkey Caucus Co-Chairs Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Steve Cohen (D-TN).

Rep. Sessions spearheaded a similar resolution in the previous Congress, by all accounts, at the urging of former Congressman Connie Mack, who, upon retiring, was retained by the Turkish Institute for Peace. That resolution secured a total of 2 cosponsors.

Turkey: New Revelation: Military, Intel Chiefs Met For 6 Hours The Day Before Coup Attempt

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(Stockholmcf)While many questions about what happened on the day and night of a July 15 coup attempt in Turkey persist, it was recently revealed that Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan had a six-hour meeting in Ankara a day before the coup attempt, news website OdaTV reported on Monday.

Müyesser Yıldız wrote in her column on the site that she has confirmed the meeting, which was revealed by Tech. Sgt. Mehmet Bilge during his defense in court where he along with others is standing trial on putsch-related charges.

According to Yıldız, the meeting of Fidan and Akar took place following a diploma ceremony at the Special Forces Command in Ankara on July 14.

“The specialization course diploma ceremony at the Special Forces Command was first planned to take place on July 15, a Friday, as all previous ceremonies had been. But a few days earlier it was announced that the ceremony would be held on July 14, on Thursday,” wrote Yıldız, underlining the odd change in the day of the ceremony.

According to the article, despite the fact that only the deputy chief of general staff used to participate in the Special Forces Command ceremony, Gen. Akar chose to attend this particular diploma ceremony. Although the ceremony ended at 18:00, Akar and Fidan had a one-on-one meeting until 00:30.

“If the July 15 [coup attempt] had not taken place, this meeting would probably never have attracted attention… Is it not interesting that the two secret names of the coup attempt had a six-hour meeting just a day before the coup and that no one has talked about the meeting for seven months, despite the fact that many knew about it?” asked Yıldız at the end of her article.

The role of Chief of General Staff Gen. Akar and MİT Undersecretary Fidan has been at the center of many questions concerning the July 15 coup attempt. According to official reports, a major informed MİT about the coup plan at 14:00 and Fidan was with Akar at military headquarters until 20:30, half an hour before the failed coup attempt was launched.

Despite both President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım having expressed their uneasiness with Fidan and Akar for failing to inform them about a coup attempt on July 15, and the fact that they had learned of the coup plan six hours earlier notwithstanding, the two retained their posts while over 130,000 people from state institutions were purged and jailed by the government after the coup attempt.

The government also prevented the parliamentary Coup Investigation Commission, which was set up to investigate the failed coup attempt, from questioning Akar and Fidan about the putsch.

“We got this information … but we did not have a chance to prove or verify it … because the parliamentary Coup Investigation Commission was annulled by [President] Erdoğan,” said Aykut Erdoğdu, an opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy and member of the commission, in a Twitter message about the article by Müyesser Yıldız.

In December Erdoğdu had hinted that the failed coup on July 15 was a calculated move on the part of President Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.

Erdoğdu also said in October that the AKP was trying to obscure the realities behind the failed coup attempt on July 15 since the commission was being prevented from doing its job by “hidden hands.”

“The strongest and dirtiest hidden hand [to prevent the commission from continuing its investigation] is the ‘palace’ [Erdoğan’s] hand. It seems like the July 15 coup attempt was a Middle Eastern attempt,” Erdoğdu said.

Columnist Mehmet Tezkan also criticized the commission: “The parliamentary Coup Commission has walked around the coup attempt for three months. They tried their best not to reveal how the coup attempt was carried out, who took part in it and who was trapped.”

Although the Turkish military stated on July 27 that 8,651 military members including cadets and conscripts took part in the July 15 coup attempt, the government has dismissed over 22,000 military personnel including high-ranking generals.

A report prepared by the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (IntCen) revealed that although President Erdoğan and the Turkish government immediately put the blame for the July 15 failed coup on the faith-based Gülen movement, the coup attempt was staged by a range of Erdoğan’s opponents due to fears of an impending purge, according to a report by The Times newspaper on Jan. 17.

The Aldrimer.no website reported on Jan. 25 that NATO sources believe the coup was staged by the president of Turkey himself.

Speaking to vocaleurope.com, a former Turkish officer who served at NATO headquarters in Brussels but was sacked and recalled to Turkey as part of an investigation into the failed coup on July 15 claims that the putsch was clumsily executed and never intended to bring down the government, but rather served as a vehicle for President Erdoğan to eliminate opponents and the ultranationalists to take a prominent role in the military and impose their “Eurasian” agenda on the country.

A report published by the German Focus magazine in August claimed that Turkish government members decided to put the blame for the coup attempt on Gülen half an hour after the uprising and agreed to begin a purge of Gülen followers the next day.

source: http://stockholmcf.org/new-revelation-military-intel-chiefs-met-for-6-hours-the-day-before-coup-attempt/

Erdogan May Have to Resign If His College Diploma is Fake

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Harut Sassounian

Harut Sassounian

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN,

As if Turkish President Recep Erdogan did not have enough headaches, he now faces a new accusation that he may have forged his college diploma. If true, he would be forced to resign from his presidential seat and possibly go to jail or into exile.

Rumors have been circulating for some time that Erdogan may not have a college degree which would disqualify him from his presidential position according to Article 101 of the Turkish constitution which requires that presidential candidates “have completed higher education.”

Journalist Cengis Candar, in an Al-Monitor.com June 15 article titled: “Is Erdogan’s university diploma forged?” exposes the serious suspicions regarding the validity of the Turkish President’s college diploma.

As Candar explains, “Erdogan went to an imam-hatip school, a high school-level institution that educates religious preachers. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, graduates of those schools could pursue their higher education only in theology.” Nonetheless, when Erdogan ran for President in August 2014, he presented to the Higher Electoral Board a photocopy of his diploma claiming to have received a college degree in 1981 from the Dept. of Economic and Administrative Sciences of Marmara University.

The problem here is that Marmara University was founded only in 1982, making it impossible for Erdogan to have graduated a year before the University came into existence. Since the Dept. of Economics was established only in 1983, Erdogan could not have graduated from that department in 1981, as he claimed. Unfortunately, none of these suspected allegations can be thoroughly investigated in Turkey by the media or civil society in view of the dictatorial nature of the Erdogan regime which routinely shuts down newspapers and prosecutes all opponents.

The President’s aides are adamant that the accusations against Erdogan are not valid, as they emanate from members of opposition parties. The first complaint came from former judge Omer Faruk Eminagaoglu who presented to the Higher Electoral Board his suspicion that Erdogan did have a college degree because of the existing discrepancies in the photocopy of his diploma. The Electoral Board promptly rejected the judge’s appeal.

A second challenge was mounted by extreme Turkish nationalist Gokce Firat who presented detailed arguments to support the claim that Erdogan’s diploma is a forgery. Firat demanded to see Erdogan’s original diploma rather than the photocopy he had submitted to the Higher Electoral Board. The Turkish nationalist accused the President and Dean of Marmara University of aiding and abetting in the crime of forging Erdogan’s diploma. He claimed that the signatures of the President and Dean of Marmara University seen on the copy of Erdogan’s diploma do not match the ones on Firat’s own diploma from the same university. He also questioned the validity of the sequence of the number found on Erdogan’s diploma. Finally, Firat claimed that even the design of the Turkish President’s diploma is different from the ones held by other graduates.

Earlier this month, the pro-Kurdish HDP Party submitted an official parliamentary inquiry, asking Education Minister Ismet Yilmaz “to clarify the mystery surrounding the validity” of Erdogan’s university diploma. In response to a similar request to the Higher Electoral Board, the HDP received a notarized copy of the Turkish President’s diploma. However, the HDP announced that it will continue to challenge the validity of the diploma.

In his article, Cengiz Candar raised serious concerns about Erdogan’s legitimacy as President of Turkey should it be proven that his diploma is forged: “If taken seriously, the follow-up to the controversy could create monumental legal questions in Turkey. If it turns out Erdogan was never qualified to be elected president, whatever he has signed or implemented would have to be considered null and void from a purely legal point of view. Politically, it would provide an armory of ammunition to his critics whose numbers abroad are rapidly increasing. And if Erdogan’s university diploma proves to be a forgery, that would naturally provide ammunition to his international opponents to bring up the argument of whether his title is legitimate.”

While President Erdogan is demanding a DNA test to verify the ethnic origins of the 11 Turkish members of the German Parliament who voted to recognize the Armenian Genocide, it may be more appropriate to carry out a chemical analysis of his diploma. Erdogan should also undergo a psychological examination to evaluate his persistently irrational psychotic behavior!

Davutoglu’s Fake Apology Offers No Recognition

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SYRIA-CRISIS/TURKEYWASHINGTON—The Armenian National Committee of America’s (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian commented on a recent statement by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in which the premier attempted to nullify the issue of the Armenian Genocide while offering no real recognition of the attempts by the Ottoman Empire to wipe out the Armenian people.

“Facing a global wave of Armenian Genocide recognition – from the Pope to the European Parliament – Turkey’s leaders are defiantly doubling down on denial,” Hamparian said in his comments. “Prime Minister Davutoglu’s fake apology today grants no recognition, accepts no responsibility, expresses no regret, and offers no reparations.”

“On April 24th, President Obama has a historic opportunity to reject Turkey’s gag-rule, ending a shameful chapter of U.S. complicity in Ankara’s denial, and moving Turkey, Armenia, and the region toward a better future based upon a truthful and just resolution of this crime.”

In his statement on Monday, Davutoglu said Turkey “shares the pain of Armenians whose parents or grandparents were killed under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.”

“We once again respectfully remember and share the pain of grandchildren and children of Ottoman Armenians who lost their lives during deportation in 1915,” Davutoglu said, avoiding any mentions of massacres, let alone genocide.

The relatively calm tone of the statement contrasts with the furious reactions from Ankara early this month when Pope Francis and the European Parliament used the term genocide to describe the killings.

Davutoglu had on April 12 lashed out at Pope Francis for what he described as “inappropriate” and “one-sided” comments on the issue. He pointed the finger at European countries who he said had committed many crimes against humanity, mentioning the ousting of Muslims from Spain five hundred years ago.

Threats from Ankara were also followed by accusations and insults, including some in the Turkish Foreign Minister’s comments when he called Argentinians “brainwashed” and accused the country of harboring Nazis in the past.

Davutoglu said Turks and Armenians should “heal their wounds from that century and reestablish their human relations.”

The statement echoed a similar one from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who last April offered “condolences” to the Armenian people, while in the same manner failing to admit any fault or any recognition of crimes against humanity.