One of the first Turkish academics to acknowledge and openly discuss the Armenian Genocide, Professor Taner Akcam will tour Australia and New Zealand with his ground-breaking new book, “Killing Orders: Talat Pasha’s Telegrams and the Armenian Genocide in early August”, announced the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).

Accepting the invitation from ANC-AU, Akcam will be speaking at an event hosted by the University of Auckland in New Zealand on August 6, before a Sydney community lecture and book signing on August 8. This will be held at the Auditorium of the Willoughby Uniting Church (10 Clanwilliam Street, Willoughby).

He will also speak covering other topics relating to the Armenian Genocide to university and public audiences, organised in coordination with the University of Sydney (click here) and the University of Newcastle (more information soon), while an event in Melbourne is also being coordinated.

“We are delighted that Australian and New Zealand audiences will have the unique opportunity of sharing an audience with Professor Akcam, who has uncovered ‘smoking gun’ proof that makes the Armenian Genocide even more irrefutable than it already is,” said ANC-AU Executive Director, Haig Kayserian.

In the Killing Orders, Akcam verifies archival evidence, previously dismissed as being ‘fake’, which refutes the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide. He sociologist and historian argues that the sanctioning of the genocide can finally be proven through official documents, and he summarises meticulous research he has undertaken as one of the most respected, award-winning names in the field.

Akcam said: “A unique feature of the Armenian Genocide has been the long-standing efforts of successive Turkish governments to deny its historicity and to hide the documentary evidence surrounding it. Denialists claimed that there was no central decision taken by Ottoman authorities to exterminate the Armenians and all available documents that indicate otherwise are either fake or were doctored by Armenians.”

The book provides a major clarification of the often-blurred lines between facts and truth with regard to these events. Akcam both brings to light documents either hidden or destroyed by the Turkish government that contain the killing orders, as well as demonstrates the authenticity of these orders, which had been signed by Ottoman Interior Minister, Talat Pasha.

“These killing orders of Talat Pasha had been given to an Armenian intellectual named Aram Andonian by an Ottoman bureaucrat by the name of Naim Efendi,” Akcam explained. “The denialist school has long argued that a bureaucrat with the name Naim Efendi never existed and that there exists no memoir written by him.”

“According to this claim, the telegrams and memoirs were all forgeries, produced by Armenians to further their claims. I provide the evidence to refute the basis of these claims and proves that the existence of Naim Efendi, his memoir and the killing orders are authentic, revealing the genocidal intent of the Ottoman-Turkish government towards its Armenian population.”