Lost Zabel Yesayan Writing on Genocide Unearthed in Paris

August 22, 2014 By administrator

PARIS (Armenpress)—Turkish historian Umit Kurt and journalist Alev Er, in their studies at the Paris Nubarian Library, have discovered an hitherto unpublished document on the Armenian Genocide, the author of which is the well-known woman writer of that time Zabel Yesayan. Her 11-page document tells the details of what happened with Armenian women in 1915 and after. Zabel Yesayan submitted the document to the representative of the Armenian delegation at the Paris Conference of 1919, Poghos Nubar Pasha. Istanbul-based Turkish-Armenian periodical Agos has presented some parts of the document.

Yesayan particularly mentions that since the beginning of the war, the Union und Progress Party systematically exterminated the Empire’s non-Muslim population. Young women and children, whose numbers were more than 200 thousand, were forcibly kidnapped.

Zabel Yesayan, a gifted novelist, was born in 1878 in Scutari, a district of Constantinople. From an early age, she wanted to be a writer and as early as age 17 she published a short piece in a literary magazine. She obtained higher education in Paris where she worked her way through the Sorbonne by revising a French-Armenian dictionary and by writing articles and short stories for French and Armenian magazines. She returned to Constantinople at the age of 30 to enjoy an active literary life, well recognized for her talent. The Young Turks ranked her with Zohrab, Zartarian, Siamanto and Varoujan and placed her name – the only female writer – on their list for execution. She escaped to Bulgaria and from there managed to reach the Caucasus, from where she documented much of the atrocities taking place. In 1918 she went to Egypt, then to Cilicia and then to Paris, serving in the Armenian Delegation for Peace. Disillusioned, she became a Communist and urged all diaspora Armenians to recognize Soviet Armenia as the only motherland.

In 1927 she visited Soviet Armenia for the first time. Shortly afterwards she was invited to establish permanent residence. In 1933 at the age of 55, she left a comfortable Parisian life and settled in Soviet Armenia with her daughter, Sophie and son, Hrant. In Yerevan, she taught comparative literature and French literature to university students, wrote numerous articles, and published prolifically. It is believed, but not confirmed, that she was drowned and most likely died in exile sometime in 1943.

If Armenian Genocide had been denounced, Yazidis would not be suffering now – Ruben Melkonyan

August 18, 2014 By administrator

The developments in the Middle East are the result of the West’s double-standard policy, expert in Turkic studies Ruben Melkonyan told reporters on Monday.

What is happening to Yazidis now is identical to what is going on in Syria.

“The West is arming Islamists on the one hand, and is criticizing and bombing on the other hand. Turkey has played a great role in supporting Islamic extremists, and it was with Turkey’s support that they entered Kessab. And the extremists committing the Yazidi genocide now are being supported by Turkey,” Mr Melkonyan said.

Armenians, as a genocide survivor nation, must support Yazidis to prevent what happened early in the 20th century from recurring in the 21st century.

“If the Armenian Genocide had been denounced, Yazidis would not be suffering now. We are going to witness such atrocities until the Armenian Genocide has been denounced,” he said.

Source: tert.am

The sheer, brutal efficiency, ISIL closest analog Turkish Talat Pasha and Adolf Hitler

August 13, 2014 By administrator

ISIL is several steps above Boko Haram or even the Taliban. The closest analog is Turkish Talat Pasha The young Turks massacring 1.5 million Arminians, Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian movement that killed more than two million people in the mid-1970s. There was a reminder of those horrors this week, when two top Khmer Rouge leaders were finally sentenced for their crimes. In their remorseless advance through eastern Syria and northern Iraq, ISIL’s fighters have demonstrated the same iron will and discipline that Khmer Rouge deployed against the Cambodian army and the Cambodian people. In territory Al-Baghdadi controls, he uses the same tactics of intimidation and public punishment that Pol Pot used to cow his fellow Cambodians.

In its appetite for genocide, ISIL seems to borrow from Turkish Talat Pasha and Adolf Hitler’s Nazis. It, too, has identified for extermination entire categories of people. Its fighters have systematically rounded up groups of “unbelievers”—and remember, that can mean anybody, including their fellow Sunnis—and slaughtered them in a manner Heinrich Himmler would have approved of. If the disturbing photographs (and be warned, they are very disturbing) in this Washington Post story were in grainy black-and-white, they could have come from a Nazi death camp. And online videos of these mass killings clearly show miss the zealous glee with which the executioners go about the work.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.
The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.
Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, the Italian Chamber of Deputies, majority of U.S. states, parliaments of Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Belgium and Wales, National Council of Switzerland, Chamber of Commons of Canada, Polish Sejm, Vatican, European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.

some of the information from Bobby Ghosh article. photo gagrulenet

Now That the Lawsuits Are Settled, Let’s Build the Genocide Memorial

July 22, 2014 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

On July 15, a Federal Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s 2011 decision, ordering the return to the Cafesjian Family Foundation (CFF) the properties intended for the construction of an Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Here is how Appeals Court Judges Garland, Wilkins, and Ginsburg summarized the series of lawsuits and counter-suits filed by the contending parties in the past seven years:

Armenian Assembly of America officials, including Hirair Hovnanian and Gerard Cafesjian, “secured sizeable funding contributions, and formed a nonprofit corporation, the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial (AGM&M). They also agreed on and purchased a historic building for the museum’s site, just a few blocks from the White House. But as the years wore on, they were unable to agree on much else. Progress staggered. Tensions mounted. Little true headway was made. Eventually, one of the project’s principal founders and benefactors, the late Gerard Cafesjian, chose to part ways with the group and resigned his post as President of AGM&M. The split was far from amicable. And so began a chain of events culminating in this tangle of litigation. After several years of legal wrangling, the parties’ claims ultimately proceeded to a bench trial before the District Court. Save for a single cause of action, all of the claims were found unproven. Post-trial proceedings ensued on a multitude of issues, and, after many of the District Court’s decisions were appealed on a piecemeal basis, the assorted cases on appeal were consolidated and presented to us for resolution.”

In the last page of their ruling, the Appeals Court Judges voiced their frustration and dismay at the wasteful series of lawsuits. In utter exasperation, they wrote:

“This legal saga has been long-lived. What began as a single lawsuit to collect on an unpaid promissory note quickly escalated into a morass of litigation. More than seven years and millions of dollars in legal fees later, much of the parties’ work to achieve their dream of a museum appears to have been for naught, which is regrettable. Whatever happens next, hopefully our decision today can at least serve as the last word on this dispute’s protracted journey through the courts.”

I received scores of e-mails from many readers last week deploring the fact that two prominent Armenian organizations wasted millions of dollars in suing each other instead of settling their dispute out of court and building a Genocide Museum, scheduled for completion long before the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide. Unfortunately, the inauguration of the Museum, located just two blocks from the White House, may not take place at all!

It is deeply regrettable that both sides had rejected all offers by third parties to mediate their dispute. The millions of dollars spent on litigation would have helped fund the Genocide Museum. This is yet another sorrowful example of Armenians acting against their own interests!

A miracle could still happen! Even though Mr. Cafesjian passed away last September, he had repeatedly declared that it was his fervent desire to build a Genocide Museum and Memorial in the nation’s Capital. Armenians worldwide ardently wish that his heirs and CFF trustees honor Mr. Cafesjian’s commitment to this revered project and bring his undying dream to fruition.

Armenia’s leaders, heads of Diaspora organizations, and community members should notify CFF trustees that they are fully ready and prepared to provide all possible support to make Mr. Cafesjian’s dream a reality. This museum shall be a lasting tribute to Gerard Cafesjian who donated tens of millions of dollars for humanitarian projects in Armenia and the United States.

Now that this acrimonious lawsuit is behind us, it is high time for the Armenian American community, with the consent of CFF trustees, to come together and form a pan-Armenian committee, including the Armenian Assembly, to begin planning the building of this important landmark in Washington, D.C.

The Genocide Museum would be a lasting reminder to millions of visitors not only of the terrible tragedy that befell Armenians in 1915, but more importantly, the story of their indomitable spirit to survive and thrive. The Museum, therefore, could more properly be called, “Memorial to Armenian Survival from Genocide.”

Should CFF trustees and the Armenian-American community share this miraculous vision, the groundbreaking ceremony could be held on the future site of the Armenian Memorial on April 24, 2015!

Bedrosyan: The Genocide of the Pontic Greeks

July 3, 2014 By administrator

By Raffi Bedrosyan

The annihilation of the non-Turk/non-Muslim peoples from Anatolia started on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. Within a few months, 1.5 million Armenians had been wiped out from their historic homeland of 4,000 years in what is now eastern Turkey, as well as from the northern, southern, central, and western parts of Turkey. About 250,000 Assyrians were also massacred in southeastern Turkey during the same period. Then, it was the Pontic Greeks’ turn to be eliminated from northern Turkey on the Black Sea coast, sporadically from 1916 onward. The ethnic cleansing of the Pontic Greeks got interrupted when the Ottomans ended up on the losing side of World War I, but their real destruction resumed in a well-organized manner on May 19, 1919. This article will summarize the tragic end of the Pontic Greek civilization in northern Turkey—a series of events less researched and documented than the Armenian Genocide, but equally denied and covered up by the Turkish state.

Pontic Greeks continuously inhabited the southern coast of the Black Sea in northern Anatolia since pre-Byzantine times. The ethnic cleansing of the Pontic Greeks followed the same pattern as the Armenian deportations and massacres: Citing security threats and suspicions of possible cooperation with the Russians, in the spring of 1916 the Ottoman government ordered that all Pontic Greeks be removed from the Black Sea coastal towns to 50 kilometers inland. Of course, in the case of the Armenians, the deportation orders were not only in the eastern war zone, but applied to every region in Turkey. The Pontic Greek deportations were carried out by the Special Organization (Teskilat-i Mahsusa), the same governmental organization that carried out the Armenian massacres, manned by convicted killers released from prisons. Documents show that the longer the prison term, the higher the rank given by the government for these criminals in carrying out their destructive tasks. Naturally, the Greek deportations soon transformed from relocation to robbery to mass murders. But because the Pontic Greeks had observed the fate of the Armenians a year ago, they got their defenses organized and resisted the deportations by taking to the mountains wherever they could. As a result, the deportations and massacres in this “First Phase Massacre” resulted only in 150,000 deaths, eliminating a third of the Pontic population until the end of the war.

The “Second and Real Phase of Massacre” that saw the organized destruction of the Pontic Greeks started in earnest with the arrival of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Samsun on May 19, 1919. He met with the well-known mass murderers of the Armenians of the Black Sea region, such as Topal (Lame) Osman and Ipsiz Recep, and secured their cooperation in starting a terror campaign to get rid of the Pontic Greeks from northern Turkey. These two murderers, originally smugglers of illegal goods, had gained notoriety in 1915 when they rounded up Armenian men, women, and children in large boats, took them out to sea, and dumped them overboard to drown, then boasted that the “smelt season will be bountiful this year with lots of food for them.” As the Pontic Greek men had taken to the mountains, these two murderers went after the Greek women and children who had remained in the villages. Various methods of mass murder were implemented. It was common to take the entire population of villages to caves nearby, seal the entrance of the cave, and burn them alive, or use gas to suffocate them inside. Any male Greeks caught were thrown, alive, into the coal furnaces of steamships through the funnels. Churches became incinerators to burn alive as many Greeks as could be stuffed into the building. The extent of the tortures and massacres the Greeks endured even disturbed the local Muslim population, who petitioned the Ankara government to remove these murderers from the region. Eventually Ataturk brought them to Ankara, where Osman became his personal bodyguard. Yet, when Osman shot a member of parliament for criticizing Ataturk, and then threatened Ataturk himself, he was executed.

There were also the so-called “Liberation Courts” (Istiklal Mahkemeleri) set up in cities across the Black Sea region to try Greek rebels. These courts passed arbitrary decisions that almost invariably resulted in death sentences, with no defense or appeals allowed, and hangings carried out immediately. Among the victims of these courts were hundreds of Greek teachers in the American and Greek schools of the region, prominent community leaders, clergymen, and, tragically, entire members of the Merzifon Greek high school football team, only because the team was named Pontus Club, which was deemed sufficient reason to label them a rebel terrorist organization. Ataturk then appointed Nurettin Pasha as commander of the Central Army to mop up any resisting Greeks from the entire Black Sea region. This man, also known for his sadistic tendencies, destroyed thousands of defenseless Greek villages. Among his “accomplishments” was the arrest of a Turkish opposition journalist who had criticized Ataturk; Nurettin Pasha then had his soldiers tear the journalist alive limb by limb. He was also at the head of the army units that entered Izmir (Smyrna) in 1922, where he arranged for the lynching of the Greek head of the clergy in the same manner, and then began the Great Fire that destroyed the entire city.

Between May 19, 1919, and the end of 1922, the Pontic Greek population was decimated by 353,000 in the following cities:

Amasya, Giresun, Samsun: 134,078

Tokat: 64,582

Trabzon: 38,434

Niksar: 27,216

Sebinkarahisar: 21,448

Macka: 17,479

There was also a violent campaign to Islamize the Greeks; quite a number of them converted to Islam under threats and torture, followed by Turkification. With the 1924 Lausanne Treaty, the few remaining Pontic Greeks were included in the 1,250,000 Anatolian Greeks “exchanged” for Muslims in Greece, thereby completely emptying the Black Sea region from its historic Greek civilization. All the names of the Greek villages and towns were changed into new Turkish names. Turkish language was forced upon all the converted Greeks, Hamshen Armenians, Laz, and Georgian minorities.

And thus began a century-long brainwashing campaign of single-state, single-nation, single language, single-language policy. The May 19, 1919 date of Ataturk’s arrival in Samsun as a national holiday celebrating Youth and Sports Day was adopted in 1937, copying the German Nazis’ superior race policies, to demonstrate the athleticism and beauty of the Turkish race. The extent of racism was evident in the statement of then-Justice Minister Mahmut Esat Bozkurt, who said, “Turks are the masters in this country. The remaining peoples have only one right in this country, to be the maids and slaves of the real Turks.”

As recently as in 2008, then-Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul echoed the same racist sentiments in Turkey: “If the Greeks had been allowed to exist in the Aegean and Black Sea regions, and the Armenians all over Anatolia, would we be able to have a powerful national state today?” The chief murderer of the Pontic Greeks, Topal (Lame) Osman, is still regarded as a hero by nationalist Turks. His statue was recently erected in Giresun by one of the Eregenekon deep-state leaders, retired general Veli Kucuk, himself responsible for the “mysterious disappearance” of dozens of Kurds, and the assumed mastermind behind the organized assassination of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Kucuk was arrested and sentenced to life in prison for plotting the overthrow of the Erdogan government as part of the deep-state trials, but was recently released from prison by Erdogan (following the falling out between Erdogan and the religious leader Fethullah Gulen, whose followers were among the prosecutor team and police forces who had arrested Kucuk).

It has now become clear that the Turkish state’s policy to create a single nationalist state with a single religion and language has failed miserably. Within Turkey, Kurds could not be assimilated, and the grandchildren of the hidden Islamized Armenians and Pontic Greeks are starting to “come out” to find their roots. Outside Turkey, the Armenians continue to demand justice and restitution for the 1915 genocide. Assyrians have also started to get organized in various European states to demand their rights. In 1994, the Greek Parliament recognized the Pontic Greek Genocide on the 75th anniversary of the 1919 events. There is now a vast body of common knowledge regarding the true facts of the genocidal events that took place in Turkey from 1915 to 1923, and they can no longer be covered up by the denialist policies of the Turkish state.

source: the armenian weekly

About Raffi Bedrosyan is a civil engineer as well as a concert pianist, living in Toronto, Canada. For the past several years, proceeds from his concerts and two CDs have been donated to the construction of school, highway, water, and gas distribution projects in Armenia and Karabagh—projects in which he has also participated as a voluntary engineer. Bedrosyan was involved in organizing the Surp Giragos Diyarbakir/Dikranagerd Church reconstruction project, and in promoting the significance of this historic project worldwide as the first Armenian reclaim of church properties in Anatolia after 1915. In September 2012, he gave the first Armenian piano concert in the Surp Giragos Church since 1915.

#ReturnChurches: ANCA Rallies Support for Churches Accountability Act

June 24, 2014 By administrator

Tuesday, June 24: Congressional Call-In Day and Social Media Campaign

WASHINGTON—With just days to Thursday’s vote by the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act (H.R. 4347), the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has set Tuesday, June 24th as a day for Congressional calls and social media activism in support of this bipartisan religious freedom measure.

Call to Action in support of H.R. 4347

“This Tuesday, please call, post, tweet, and share your support for Turkey’s return of stolen Armenian, Greek, Syriac and other Christian churches,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “Let your legislators know you expect them to work for the passage of H.R.4347, and then take two minutes to tell your friends and family that you’re taking a stand for the bipartisan Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act.”

The ANCA is asking all supporters of religious freedom to contact their legislators to support H.R.4347, and then to find creative ways to use the hashtag #ReturnChurches in their Facebook, Twitter and other social media posts. A sample phone script and relevant contact information for legislators is available at http://www.anca.org/returnchurches.

The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, under the leadership of Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), is set to consider H.R. 4347, the Turkey Christian Churches Accountability Act, on Thursday, June 26th at 9:00 am EST. The freedom of faith initiative is stridently opposed by the Turkish Government.

Introduced this March of this year by Chairman Royce along with the panel’s Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY), H.R. 4347 would require that the U.S. Department of State formally report to Congress on an annual basis about the status of Turkey’s return of stolen Christian churches and properties in Turkey and occupied Cyprus. H.R. 4347 builds on a measure (H.Res.306), spearheaded by Chairman Royce and then House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA), which was overwhelmingly adopted by the House of Representatives on December 13, 2011. That resolution set the groundwork for H.R.4347 by calling upon the government of Turkey to honor its international obligations to return confiscated Christian church properties and to fully respect the rights of Christians to practice their faiths.

Genocide Education Act Passes Calif. Senate Committee

June 18, 2014 By administrator

Last genocide survivor passes as Genocide Education is brought to forefront of California curricula

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—On Wednesday, the Senate Education Committee unanimously passed AB 1915, The Armenian Genocide Education Act, with a vote of 7-0. The human rights education measure authored by Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian (D – Sherman Oaks), will require the inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in the list of studied subject areas for the adopted courses of study in Social Science for 7-12. It will also encourage the incorporation of an oral history component into the teaching of human rights, and genocides, including the Holocaust, Armenian, Cambodian, Darfur, and Rwandan genocides.

The introduction of this measure comes at a defining point, in not only working towards a more comprehensive curriculum about the Armenian Genocide, but also in having the international community recognize an atrocity that has for too long been overlooked.

With the centennial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide quickly approaching, a very frail few survivors remain to tell their stories from the horrors they experienced during this dark chapter in world history. The passage of AB 1915 out of this committee follows the passing of Nellie Nazarian, the last Armenian Genocide survivor from Merrimack Valley, Massachusetts, reminding us that increased education on the subject is much needed before there are no survivors left. Nellie escaped the massacre in her native village of Chimisgazag by taking refuge in the mountains with her family before immigrating to America in the early 1920’s. “It is important to remember the stories of those who experienced violations to human rights. I hope that the passage of this legislation brings some closure for the remaining survivors of all genocides. To educate our students on the Armenian Genocide, as well as other atrocities that have taken place, will ensure that the innocent did not die in vain. This bill is for the survivors and those who perished.” said Assemblymember Nazarian.

Nellies story joins the thousands which have been thoroughly detailed in documentaries and memoirs describing the suffering experienced by survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Oral Histories will be a vital tool for educators to utilize in strengthening genocide curricula and further raise consciousness of the Armenian Genocide in California’s educational system.

Currently, California is one of 11 states, including Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Virginia, which have the Armenian Genocide included in their curriculum. The California Model Curriculum developed by the Department of Education, includes the Armenian Genocide as a recommended topic to teach. However, schools aren’t required to follow this Model Curriculum.

AB 1915 will be heard next in the Senate Appropriations Committee, then head to the Senate floor for vote.

Turkey’s DC Envoy Angered by Jewish Group’s Genocide Recognition

June 10, 2014 By administrator

WASHINGTON—In a tersely-worded letter, Turkey’s new Ambassador in Washington, Serdar Kılıç, accused the American Jewish Committee of being “unfair, insulting and patently out of touch with realities” when the group issued a statement on April 23 recognizing the Armenian Genocide and urging Turkey to face its history.

Kılıç wrote the letter to David Harris, the executive director of AJC on April 24. Asbarez obtained the letter, in which the Turkish Ambassador expresses “our extreme disappointment and regret with the statement issued yesterday by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in which the tragic events of 1915 are unjustly labeled as “genocide.” We reject the AJC statement in its entirety.”

Headquartered in New York and with governmental affairs offices in Washington, the AJC was established in 1906 and has grown to become a global advocacy group. On April 23, the AJC issued a statement honoring the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

The Turkish Ambassador goes of to reiterate official Ankara’s denialist position that Armenians were not the only victims during the “final years of the Ottoman Empire,” and cites Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s now infamous “condolence statement” on April 23.

Kılıç also cites notorious Genocide denier Bernard Lewis, quoting a passage from his book, “Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian,” in which he argues that Armenians staged a rebellion and accordingly were killed.

“Ambassador Kılıç’s letter reflects a growing disdain on the part of the Turkish government toward the Jewish American community’s moral stance against Genocide,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

“This remarkably disrespectful diplomatic correspondence confirms what we have always known, namely that the Turkish government has, since day one, viewed its relationship with the American Jewish Committee – and, more broadly, its political connection to the Jewish American community’s moral standing on issues of Genocide – as a cynical alliance aimed at blocking U.S. support for a truthful and just resolution of the Armenian Genocide,” added Hamparian. “Now that the AJC has taken a truthful stand on the Armenian Genocide – a principled position consistent with the views of Americans of Jewish heritage and faith – they are angrily attacked and insulted by the Turkish government. From Ankara’s perspective, the depth of this relationship was clearly only denial-deep.”

Below is the complete text of Ambassador Kılıç’s letter:

Dear Mr. Harris,
I am writing to you to express our extreme disappointment and regret with the statement issued yesterday by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in which the tragic events of 1915 are unjustly labeled as “genocide.” We reject the AJC statement in its entirety for the following reasons:

To begin with, the final years of the Ottoman Empire were indeed a tragic period; however not only for the Armenians but for all the people that made up the Empire. The AJC statement in this respect, while trying to capitulate on the sufferings of the Ottoman Armenians, reflects a one-sided and biased account by turning a blind eye to the sufferings of other ethnic and religious communities during the aforementioned period. Our fundamental objection to your statement in this context is branding the 1915 events as genocide, which is a specific crime, clearly defined by 1948 Convention. According to the Convention, only a competent international tribune is authorized to pass a judgment as to whether a specific act constitutes genocide. Such a court decision exists in the cases of the Holocaust, Rwanda and Srebrenica, while no decision exists for the events of 1915.

Turkey acknowledges the fact that the relocation of some of the Ottoman Armenians actually resulted in tragic consequences. As a matter of fact, only yesterday Prime Minister Erdogan acknowledged this fact and offered his condolences to the grandchildren of the Ottoman Armenians who lost their lives in 1915. In his statement, Prime Minister Erdogan called on the Armenian leaders to work towards building a common future together, instead of turning our equally painful history into a matter of political conflict.

The call in AJC statement that “history must be faced” is a message that Turkey fully concurs with. Indeed, we have expressed our readiness to face our history and to that end proposed the establishment of a Joint Historical Commission as a concrete reflection of this position. Scholarly research to be carried out by Turkish, Armenian and international historians would play a significant role in shedding a more fair and just light on the events of 1915.

Furthermore, the nature of the 191 5 events is freely and widely discussed in today’s Turkey, unlike the case in Armenia, where the issue remains a dogmatic taboo that prevents the Armenian side from accepting our Joint Historical Commission proposal. On the other hand, contrary to what you suggest in your statement, our archives, hundreds of thousands of documents including this period, are also open to all researchers around the world.

There was no intent to destroy or annihilate the Armenian population since many Ottoman Armenians, including those residing in the capital of the Empire, were not relocated. Using the frequently cited but extremely flawed analogy of the Holocaust, this would be tantamount to the Nazis taking a decision to annihilate all Jews but yet taking no steps against the Jews living in Berlin, which was inconceivable. Bernard Lewis, in his book entitled “Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian,” explains in breadth the basic differences between Holocaust and the 1915 events; including the fact (i) “that the Ottoman Armenians were involved in an armed rebellion, whereas the Jews were not, but were attacked solely because of their identity” and (ii) “that the persecution of Armenians was mostly confined to endangered areas, while the Armenian populations in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, notably in big cities, were left more or less unharmed.”

It is also disappointing to note that the AJC, while referring to Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, has failed to mention Srebrenica, which was also termed as genocide by the International Court of Justice, and instead has decided to label the historically, politically and legally contentious events of 1915 as genocide. We sincerely hope that this is not a reflection of an Islamophobic viewpoint on this issue.

In view of the foregoing, we find the AJC statement unfair, insulting and patently out of touch with realities. It seems that the AJC follows a different agenda and is reluctant to acknowledge Turkey’s position and all the steps we have hitherto taken on this issue. That such a step comes from the leadership of a community which was welcomed by the Ottoman leaders in the 16th century and was protected from the Holocaust during WWII further aggravates our disappointment with your latest statement.

Allain Delon Genocide movie meets Turks’ counteraction

June 6, 2014 By administrator

The Turkish Grand National Assembly’s committee on “Armenian Genocide allegations” has conducted a special meeting to consider counter-measures to the Armenian Diaspora’s genocide centennial preparation events.

Referring to the Armenian lobby’s plans to produce a movie starring Allain Delon, the committee’s members decided to undertake a similar initiative on their own part. Haberturk reports that they agreed to launch the production of a film entitled, Our Heart’s Wound.

Opposition lawmaker Sinan Ohan said the movie’s title is unrelated to the Armenian issue. “It reminds of a love film,” he told the parliament members.

American film director Steve Spielberg has already received the Armenian lobby’s proposal to produce the film, The Wounded, says the publication.

According to the Turkish media, Delon will portray Komitas, the great Armenian composer Komitas (1869-1935) who experienced a serious mental breakdown in the wake of Genocide.

Dustin Hofman is also expected to play in the movie. The author of the music will be the popular US-Armenian rock musician Serj Tankian.

Comcast’s ‘Newsmakers’ Interviews Genocide Education Project Board Member

June 3, 2014 By administrator

SAN FRANCISCO—Comcast Cable “Newsmakers” California network broadcast is featuring an interview with Genocide Education Project (GenEd) board member, Roxanne Makasdjian, about GenEd’s efforts to promote instruction on the Armenian Genocide in schools. In the four and a half minute interview, veteran Bay Area television anchorwoman, Barbara Rogers and Makasdjian discuss the history of the Armenian Genocide, why so many haven’t learned about it, and the services offered by GenEd to help teachers incorporate lessons on the Armenian Genocide into their classrooms. The interview will be replayed multiple times on Comcast Cable and appears on its website. It can also be viewed on the

The Genocide Education Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) educational organization that assists educators in teaching about human rights and genocide, particularly the Armenian Genocide, by developing and distributing instructional materials, providing access to teaching resources and organizing educational workshops. For more information about The Genocide Education Project, go to