Turkey Archives

Turkey: Foreign Minister Davutoğlu discusses Armenian resolution with Kerry

April 10, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a phone conversation with U.S. Secretary General John Kerry late April 9, discussing the recent Armenian draft resolutions that were submitted to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

“We don’t have a negative expectation [for the outcome of the draft resolution],” Davutoğlu told reporters in Ankara on April 10, adding that the two had also discussed developments in Syria and Egypt.

The Turkish government is taking measures against “initiatives that will bother Turkey. We hope they will not take such an attitude,” he also said.

Last week, four U.S. Congressmen introduced a resolution calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to encourage a Turkish-Armenian relationship based on Turkey’s acknowledgement that the 1915-16 killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces constituted genocide. The move was paralleled by a resolution introduced to the U.S. Senate by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez and Senator Mark Kirk.

Turkey: Two British editors quit AA, calling it Erdoğan’s propaganda machine

April 10, 2014 By administrator

9 April 2014, Wednesday /ANKARA, TODAY’S ZAMAN

Two British journalists who used to work as editors at the Anadolu Agency’s (AA) English news service have left their jobs, saying they do not want to work at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “propaganda mouthpiece.”

In the article “We Quit Working for Erdogan’s Propaganda Mouthpiece” published on the UK site of Vice international magazine on Tuesday, journalists Kate O’Sullivan and Laura Benitez said, “We joined the agency in January, supposedly to edit English-language news, but quickly found ourselves becoming English-language spin doctors.”

The two applied for the job at Anadolu after seeing an ad in the Guardian daily.

“The AA’s editorial line on domestic politics — and Syria — was so intently pro-government that we might as well have been writing press releases,” it was stated in the article.

O’Sullivan and Benitez also criticized Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç for downplaying the number of imprisoned journalists in Turkey at an event at London’s Chatham House. The two journalists later had the opportunity to visit London on business and resigned as soon as they arrived in the UK.

The journalists said the Anadolu Agency was once a point of national pride, but today “it’s at the end of one of the many sets of strings in the ruling [Justice and Development Party] AK Party’s puppet parade.” They said most of Turkey’s TV stations are heavily influenced by the state and the “few opposition channels can expect to have their licenses revoked at any time or be banned from broadcasting key events, such as live election footage or anything that might detract from how fantastic the government are.”

“Much of Turkey’s English-language news came via Today’s Zaman, the largest English-language newspaper in Turkey,” the article said. “Written in good, accessible English, and featuring Western humour and Istanbul-minded opinions, Today’s Zaman provided international eyes with a window into Turkey’s domestic affairs,” it added.

Anadolu Agency Director General Kemal Öztürk, the former press adviser to Erdoğan, is described in the article as a “government cabinet wannabe.” With exclusive access to ministers, the agency could report about domestic affairs as soon as events in the ruling party unfolded, O’Sullivan and Benitez said, adding: “Sources, often the most difficult part of a reporter’s job, were also a breeze: ‘The Foreign Minister told me, so yes it’s true’ — no second source-checks needed. The domestic news editing policy was, essentially: don’t ask questions. Ever.”

According to article, the agency has a more relaxed approach on foreign affairs and correspondents were free to report on events from anywhere they wanted, with a few guidelines to consider.

“A good example of the domestic editorial policy in action came the morning after tapes were leaked in which you can allegedly hear Erdogan and his son discussing how to dispose of a ‘significant’ amount of money. Translators [in Anadolu] went into panic mode to get the real story out to the English-speaking world — that, of course, the tapes had been fabricated.

While the Zaman media group has been working to portray Erdoğan as a “corrupt dictator, hell bent on control and oppression,” the article said, the pro-government media is “just as tirelessly working to paint a picture of a shadowy ‘parallel state’ that is working beneath the surface to twist the minds and thoughts of the vulnerable Turkish public.”

The article quoted Erdoğan as saying “We will get in their cave to catch them,” in reference to the members of the parallel state.

“It is this polarisation of the press that leaves a tightly-squeezed no-man’s land of moderate news sources ripe for accusations of misconduct and terrorism. Patriotism is ingrained in Turkey’s cultural psychology; Turkey has, in many ways, defined itself by its ability to self-protect,” the article said, adding the threat of outside or “foreign” control has been a part of the country’s consciousness since the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923.

U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff delivers open letter to Turkish people on Genocide (video)

April 10, 2014 By administrator

U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), the lead sponsor of the Armenian Genocide resolution, went to the House of Representatives floor to deliver an open letter to the Turkish people on the Armenian Genocide.

The letter reads:

“I write to you on a topic of great importance to both of our nations. It is on a subject that many of you, especially the younger generation, may know little about because it concerns a chapter of world history that your government has expended enormous efforts to conceal.

Turkey has been at the center of human civilization from Neolithic times to the present, and your arts, culture and science have enriched the world.

But interwoven with all of Turkey’s remarkable achievements is a dark chapter that too many of today’s Turks know little or nothing about.

Were you aware that your grandparents and great-grandparents had many Armenian neighbors and friends – that twenty percent of the population of today’s Istanbul was Armenian? Did you know that the Armenians were well integrated into Turkish society as celebrated intellects, artists, craftsmen and community leaders? Have you ever wondered, what happened to the Armenians? Have you ever asked your parents and grandparents how such a large, industrious and prosperous people largely vanished from your midst? Do you know why your government goes to such lengths to conceal this part of your history?

Let me tell you a part of their story. The rest you must find out for yourselves.

Ninety-nine years ago this month, in the dying years of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turk government launched a campaign of deportation, expropriation, starvation and murder against the empire’s Armenian citizens. Much of the Armenian population was forcibly removed to Syria, where many succumbed during brutal forced marches through the desert heat. Hundreds of thousands were massacred by Ottoman gendarmes, soldiers and even ordinary citizens.

By the time the slaughter ended in 1923, one and a half million Armenians had been killed in what is now universally acknowledged as the first genocide of the Twentieth Century. The survivors scattered throughout the Middle East and the wider world with some making their way to the United States, and to Los Angeles.

It is their grandchildren and great grandchildren whom I represent as a Member of the United States Congress. Theirs is a vibrant community, many tens of thousands strong, with schools, churches and businesses providing a daily link to their ancestral homeland. And it is on their behalf that I urge you to begin anew a national conversation in Turkey about the events of 1915-23.

As a young man or woman in Turkey, you might ask: What has this to do with me? Am I to blame for a crime committed long before I was born. And I would say this: Yours is the moral responsibility to acknowledge the truth and seek a reconciliation with the Armenian people that your parents and their parents could or would not. It is an obligation you have inherited and one from which you must not shrink. For though we cannot choose our own history, we decide what to do about it — and you will be the ones to shape Turkey’s future.

At the end of World War II, Germany was a shattered nation – defeated in battle and exposed as history’s greatest war criminal. But, in the decades since the end of the war, Germany engaged in a prolonged effort to reconcile with the Jewish people, who were nearly exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The German government has prosecuted war criminals, returned expropriated property, allied itself with Israel, and made countless apologies to the victims and to the world. Most important, Germany has worked to expunge the cancer of dehumanizing bigotry and hatred that gave rise to the Holocaust.

This path, of reflection, reconciliation and repentance must be Turkey’s path as well. It will not be easy, the questions will be painful, the answers difficult, sometimes unknowable. One question stands out:

How could a nation that peaceably ruled over a diverse, multicultural empire for centuries have turned on one of its peoples with such ruthlessness that an entirely new word had to be invented to describe what took place? Genocide.

As in Judaism and Christianity, the concept of repentance or tawba is central to Islam. Next year will mark a century since the beginning of the genocide and Armenians around the world will mourn their dead, contemplate the enormity of their loss, and ask, why? Answer them, please, with words of repentance.”

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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.
The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. “Holocaust” is a word of Greek origin meaning “sacrifice by fire.” The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.

The slaughter was systematically conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory in what are now 35 separate European countries. It was at its worst in Central and Eastern Europe, which had more than seven million Jews in 1939. About five million Jews were killed there, including three million in occupied Poland and over one million in the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands also died in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and Greece. The Wannsee Protocol makes clear that the Nazis also intended to carry out their “final solution of the Jewish question” in England and Ireland.

Armenian-Americans blame Turkey for Kassab invasion

April 9, 2014 By administrator

By Pinar Tremblay,

On March 30, Kim Kardashian, an American television personality of Armenian descent, posted two tweets with the hashtag #SaveKessab, which was retweeted over 6,000 times and generated dozens of articles in the English-language press. Another Twitter user commented, “Kim Kardashian is tweeting about #Kassab. [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is in trouble now.”

Kardashian’s Kassab tweets were followed by other celebrities, such as the Armenian-American singer Cher. Regardless of how controversial these messages are, we must acknowledge they have reached millions who would otherwise be clueless about the historic Armenian coastal town of Kassab. Located in the northwest of Syria’s beautiful Latakia region, Kassab is a tourist desination situated near the Turkish border

Kassab has seen significant immigration from other towns with large Armenian populations, such as Aleppo and Homs, since the start of Syrian civil war in March 2011. Though comprising only 1% of the Syrian population, Armenians are Syria’s seventh-largest ethnic group. The fall of Kassab could be costly for Turkey.

The Armenian diaspora has launched several protest movements all around the world. On March 27, a protest was held in the Armenian city of Yerevan. On March 28, hundreds gathered in front of the Turkish consulate in Los Angeles with “Save Kassab” signs. Harut Sassounian, publisher of the California Courier, told Al-Monitor he was present at the protest. Sassounian added, “I hold the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar fully responsible for the atrocities committed against Christians and Armenians in Syria, because they are the ones training, arming and supporting the so-called rebels. The civilized world must reject the murderers who are masquerading under the guise of regime change to impose their radical rule in Syria. The Syrian people deserve a democratic government. However, I fear that the foreign fighters who have infiltrated Syria are far more brutal than the Assad regime. I believe that regime change should come through peaceful negotiations, not beheadings and suicide bombings.”

Several other protests took place in front of Turkish embassies and consulates from Moscow to Beirut. Yeni Safak covered protests in Sydney, Australia, reporting, “Turks gave an answer to the Armenians.” The news suggested that as the group gathered in front of the consulate with chants of “Turkey get out of Kassab,” it was met by another group of protesters with Turkish flags in their hands. It is a fair, yet sad, observation that the diverse and quaint town of Kassab has brought up centuries-old enmities thousands of miles away.

Different delegations representing the Armenian diaspora have met with US State Department officials, urging them to “take immediate action to end the vicious onslaught on the historically Armenian town of Kassab, Syria, which was overrun by al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in an attack launched from Turkey on March 21.” The same day, March 28, State Department Deputy spokesperson Marie Harf spoke on the crisis in Kassab, stating, “We are deeply troubled by recent fighting and violence that is endangering the Armenian community in Kassab, Syria and has forced many to flee.” Several members of Congress have condemned the attacks in Kassab while a petition has been launched to recognize the atrocities occurring in Kassab on the White House website.

The concerns of Armenian-Americans are strongly shared by a small but resilient minority of reporters and citizens, particularly those living in the border towns of Turkey. Although rarely reported in the mainstream media, Turkish people have protested the government’s actions in Syria multiple times. Public-opinion surveys have consistently shown that support by the Turkish public for any military involvement in Syria is low. Even among Justice and Development Party loyalists, only 32% are supportive of such action. It would be fair to assess many Turks as not knowing what really is happening in Kassab as the Twitter and YouTube bans continue.

The same cannot be said for many Armenian-Americans, as many of them have relatives in Kassab and the region. Indeed, the crisis hits close to home for thousands of Angelinos. One of my best students, George Doctorian, happens to be one of them. He told Al-Monitor, “My great-uncle was asleep when he was suddenly awoken at 5 a.m. by the sound of gunshots. His son rushed into the room and told him that their town was under attack. Their neighbor had a car and they quickly jumped in and drove to Latakia. They left everything behind — passports, money, pictures, etc. My great-uncle left without a shirt. Everything they own has been left behind. They have been trying to get new passports and documentation, but it is almost impossible due to the ongoing conflict. My great-uncle believes that if they had waited a little longer to get their paperwork, they surely would not have made it out in time.”

He added, “Our family back in Kassab fears the worst. Churches have been destroyed and there are reports that even the cemeteries have been desecrated. Many reports show that the Turkish government has funded these rebel groups, primarily Jabat al-Nusra, and this is evidenced by the fact that these rebels were able to enter Kassab through the Turkish border.”

I hope for Doctorian’s commentary to be taken seriously by all parties. He said, “The events that are occurring in Kassab are horrific and should not occur in the 21st century, when the international community stresses the importance of religious freedom and basic human rights. I would, however, caution Armenians to stop using the word ‘genocide’ when describing the events that are taking place in Kassab. The word ‘genocide’ entails many requirements [in regard to what] was perpetrated by the Young Turks in the first world war. Using the word ‘genocide’ [for] the events in Kassab is wrong and does a disservice to our ancestors who went through the genocide.”

It is understandable that the younger generations of Armenians fear further persecution of their relatives in Syria. It is also understandable that Armenian youths from different parts of the world yearn to go to Syria to fight in defense of their relatives. With this background analysis, news about Los Angeles gang members going to Syria to take up arms in pro-Assad militias is not surprising.

The Turkish government denies any involvement in the events of Kassab, and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s statement that Turkey’s door is open to Kassab’s Armenians has only further escalated tensions, as Armenian pundits consider Davutoglu’s comments a “mockery of the international community.”

Davutoglu has failed to answer the simple question: How did these armed militants enter the town of Kassab, if not through the Turkish border? The alleged leaks from a meeting between Davutoglu and high-level intelligence, military and Foreign Ministry representatives have been interpreted as a Turkish willingness to engage in war with Syria. To top this all off, during his March 30 victory speech, Erdogan declared, “We are in a state of war with Syria.” Since the Turkish government’s pleas for a no-fly zone have not found support in NATO, some in Turkey now ask: With an overwhelming electoral victory, would the Turkish government establish a de facto no-fly zone on its own?

Erdogan is now well-known for his recent obsession with “lobbies.” Although I have doubts about the “robot lobby” and “interest-rate lobby,” I know the Armenian lobby in the United States is real and legitimate. Will Erdogan criticize the Armenian lobby, as well? Most importantly, will the efforts of concerned Armenians and others around the world help deter further escalation of the Syrian civil war and save innocent lives?

Pinar Tremblay

Contributor, Turkey Pulse

Pinar Tremblay is a doctoral candidate in political science at University of California, Los Angeles, and an adjunct faculty member at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She has previously been published in

Why Turks Were Capable of Exterminating Armenians, But Not Jews

April 9, 2014 By administrator

BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN

Endless comparisons are made between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. However, there is yet another comparison that is rarely made: the Turkish ability to carry out the Armenian Genocide and inability to eliminate the Jewish settlers from Palestine during the same period. Such a comparison has not been made because hardly anyone has studied the Turkish deportation plans of Jews during World War I in relationship to the Armenian Genocide.

My preliminary analysis is based on information gleamed from Prof. Yair Auron’s book, “Zionism and the Armenian Genocide: The Banality of Indifference,” Vartkes Yeghiayan’s “Pro Armenia,” and other archival materials. I would like to detail the circumstances of deportations of the Jews and how they were mostly spared, while Armenians were not! More importantly, what steps did the Jewish Diaspora and settlers in Palestine take to avoid suffering Armenians’ tragic fate?

Armenians and Jews, as minorities in the Ottoman Empire, were convenient scapegoats for the whims of ruthless Turkish leaders. Interestingly, the Young Turks used the same arguments for deporting both Armenians and Jews. The Turks had accused Armenians for cooperating with the advancing Russian Army, while similarly blaming Jews for cooperating with British forces invading Ottoman Palestine. Furthermore, Jews were accused of planning to establish their own homeland in Palestine, just as Armenians were allegedly establishing theirs in Eastern Turkey. In yet another parallel, Jamal Pasha, one of the members of the Young Turk triumvirate, had cynically commented that he was “expelling the Jews for their own good,” just as Armenians were forcefully removed “away from the war zone” for their own safety!

In 1914, when Turkey entered World War I on the German side and against the Allied Powers (England, Russia, and France), Palestine became a theater of war. Turkish authorities imposed a war tax on the population, which fell more heavily on the Jewish settlers. Their properties and other possessions were confiscated by the Turkish military. Some Jewish settlers were used as slave labor to build roads and railways. Alex Aaronsohn, a Jewish settler in Zichron Yaacov, wrote in his diary: “an order had recently come from the Turkish authorities, bidding them surrender whatever firearms or weapons they had in their possession. A sinister command, this: we knew that similar measures had been taken before the terrible Armenian massacres, and we felt that some such fate might be in preparation for our people,” as quoted in Yeghiayan’s “Pro Armenia.”

In Fall 1914, the Turkish regime issued an expulsion order for all “enemy nationals,” including 50,000 Russian Jews who had escaped from Czarist persecutions and settled in Palestine. After repeated intercessions by German Ambassador Hans Wangenheim and American Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, these “enemy nationals” were allowed to stay in Palestine, if they agreed to acquire Ottoman citizenship.

Nevertheless, on December 17, 1914, Jamal Pasha’s subordinate, Bahaeddin, governor of Jaffa, implemented the expulsion order, deporting 500 Jews who were grabbed from the streets and dragged to police headquarters, and from there forced to board ships docked in the harbor. Homes of Jewish settlers were searched for weapons. Hebrew-language signs were removed from shops and the Jewish school of Jaffa was closed down. Zionist organizations were dissolved, and on January 25, 1915, the Turkish authorities issued a declaration against “the dangerous element known as Zionism, which is struggling to create a Jewish government in the Palestinian area of the Ottoman Kingdom….”

In response to protests from Amb. Morgenthau and the German government, Constantinople reversed the deportation order and Bahaeddin was removed from his post. According to Prof. Auron, the condition of the Jewish settlers could have been much worse had it not been for “the influence of world Jewry on Turkish policy…. The American, German, and Austrian Jewish communities succeeded in restraining some of its harsher aspects. Decrees were softened; overly zealous Turkish commanders were replaced and periods of calm followed the times of distress.”

Back in 1913, Pres. Wilson had instructed Amb. Morgenthau upon his appointment: “‘Remember that anything you can do to improve the lot of your co-religionists is an act that will reflect credit upon America, and you may count on the full power of the Administration to back you up.’ Morgenthau followed this advice faithfully,” according to Isaiah Friedman’s book, “Germany, Turkey and Zionism: 1897-1918.” After arranging for the delivery of much needed funds from American Jews to Jaffa, Morgenthau wrote to Arthur Ruppen, director of the Palestine Development Association: “I have been the chosen weapon to take up the defense of my co-religionists….”

In spring 1917, the Turkish authorities issued a second order to deport 5,000 Jews from Tel Aviv. Aaron Aaronsohn, leader of the Nili group – a small Jewish underground organization in Palestine working for British intelligence – immediately disseminated the news of the deportation to the international media. Aaronsohn secretly met with British diplomat Mark Sykes in Egypt and through him sent an urgent message to London on April 28, 1917: “Tel Aviv has been sacked. 10,000 Jews in Palestine are now without home or food. Whole of Yishuv [Jewish settlements in Palestine] is threatened with destruction. Jamal [Pasha] has publicly stated Armenian policy will now be applied to Jews.”

Upon receiving Aaronsohn’s reports from Palestine, Chaim Weizmann, a key pro-British Zionist in London, transmitted the following message to Zionist leaders in various European capitals: “Jamal Pasha openly declared that the joy of Jews at the approach of British troops would be short lived as he would them share the fate of the Armenians…. Jamal Pasha is too cunning to order cold-blooded massacres. His method is to drive the population to starvation and death by thirst, epidemics, etc….”

American Jews were outraged hearing of the deportations in Palestine. News reports were issued throughout Western countries on “Turkish intentions to exterminate the Jews in Palestine,” according to Prof. Auron. Moreover, influential Jewish businessmen in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire demanded that their governments pressure Turkish leaders to abandon their plans to deport Jews. Jamal Pasha was finally forced to rescind the expulsion order and provided food and medical assistance to Jewish refugees in Tel Aviv.

(To be continued)

Turk Intellectuals Who Recognized The Armenian Genocide.

April 8, 2014 By administrator

By:Hambersom Aghbashian

Mehmet Ufuk Uras (born January 4, 1959, in Üsküdar district of Istanbul, Turkey) is a Turkish libertarian socialist politician and economist. He was elected to the Turkish parliament in 2007 hence became the first socialist independent candidate since the 1960s. Uras graduated from the Faculty of Economics ( Istanbul University) and began working as an academician at the same institution. He was elected the chairman of Freedom and Solidarity Party in 1996 and resigned from the leadership after the 2002 general election. He became the party chairman again in 2007.Uras ran a successful campaign as a “common candidate of the Left”, standing on the independents’ ticket, backed by several left-wing, environmentalist and pro-peace groups in the 2007 general election. After the Democratic Society Party was dissolved in December 2009 and two of its MPs were banned from politics for five years, he joined forces with the remaining Kurdish MPs, giving them the twenty seats necessary to retain their position as a parliamentary party. Uras wrote many books in Turkish mostly political. He is married to ballet dancer and choreographer Zeynep Tanbay.(1)

According to armeniapedia.org(08.09.2007) ,for the first time in history a member of the Turkish parliament(Turkish MP Mehmet Ufuk Uras ) recognized the Armenian Genocide and spoke of restitution of the despoiled property, independent French journalist Jean Eckian told PanARMENIAN.Net. In an interview with journalist Raffí Arax , Ufuk said, “We committed a terrible massacre against Armenians and Turkey must recognize it. It’s not important how we name this calamity: genocide, ethnic purification, etc. The most important thing is that a terrible massacre was committed and it is undeniable.” He added “We must face up to the history, bandage the wounds, develop the relations with Armenia, defend our Armenian compatriots and restore what was the property of their ancestors. I come from the area of Durig close to Sebastia where I heard the truth from my parents,” he said. “We are confident that with the negation will drive to nothing,” he resumed. (2)

According to bianet.org (Sept.2008), as a deputy for the Freedom and Solidarity Party Ufuk Uras said, “The steps taken because of the soccer match between Turkey and Armenia should be a beginning of a new era” and he listed a series of demands to improve the conditions of the Armenian citizens of Turkey. Getting ready to go to Erivan for the game, Uras urged for the opening of the border and the development of the economic relations between the two countries. “Our Armenian citizens should feel themselves as the equal citizens of this country; they should not face any discrimination in social life, especially in public life.” He added “The history should be discussed freely; all the restriction should be removed. An atmosphere of discussion without any prejudices should be encouraged.” (3)

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1-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ufuk_Uras

2-http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Ufuk_Uras

3- http://bianet.org/english/minorities/109555-socialist-deputy-uras-urges-better-relations-with-armenia

Also published on

Nor Or , April 3,2014

Demonstration of a thousand people to the Turkish consulate in Marseille

April 8, 2014 By administrator

bout a thousand people attended the Monday event organized by the South CCAF (Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France) to Marseille to denounce the Islamist attack against Kessab where 3,500 Armenians who were forced to abandon their homes lived . The event took place in front of the Turkish consulate Avenue du Prado. The speakers blamed Turkey responsibility for these terrorist acts that resulted in the destruction of this village, the last relic of the Armenian presence in the region. Donabédian Jacques, president of the South CCAF called the French government to react against this “terror perpetrated against the Armenian community of Syria” and strongly condemned Turkey.

100th anniversary of the genocide of Thracian Hellenism (Greek genocide by Turks)

April 8, 2014 By administrator

Hellenic League of America commemorates the 100th anniversary of the genocide of Thracian Hellenism.

The statement said: “A hundred years ago, our ancestors had to endure the first holocaust of the 20th century with the Armenians and Assyrians in the Ottoman territory. Otto Liman von orchestrated by Sanders and the jihadists of the Ottoman Empire, the Greek genocide saw the extermination of the Thracians, Bithynia, Ionians, Cappadocian and Pontic Greeks.

click on the document to enlarge

On 6 April 1914, called the “Black Day” commemorates the deportations and massacres that began in Thrace and later spread to Asia Minor and Pontus.

Today, the Union Panthrakikos of America “Orpheus” commemorates not only the genocide of Thracian Hellenism but also the beginning of the Greek Genocide by the Ottomans as a whole. We honor the victims of all these regions, more than 1.4 million men, women and children who were brutally murdered by the hands Young Turks.

In this Remembrance Day, we honor all those who were massacred Redesto Adrianople and through Thrace. We invite organizations around the world to unite and begin a concerted effort to force the Greek government to fully recognize April 6 with the same respect as May 19 “.

Syria false flag could have triggered WWIII: Analyst

April 8, 2014 By administrator

The United States was close to initiating World War III last year following a “false-flag” provocation over a deadly chemical attack in Syria, an analyst writes in a column for the Press TV website.

Kevin Barrett’s analysis comes against the backdrop of revelations that last August’s al-Ghouta chemical weapons attack in Syria was a false flag provocation.

“The false flag operation at al-Ghouta failed…We avoided the wider Mideast war, and possible World War III that might have resulted had the al-Ghouta deception succeeded,” he wrote.

“In reality, the attack was conducted by the enemies of the Syrian government. It was designed to deceive the world into bombing Syria. And it almost worked,” the analyst said.

Barrett said a US-led invasion of Syria last year “could have killed millions” of people.

He described “false-flag plots” as “crimes against humanity”, saying impunity for the perpetrators of the al-Ghouta chemical attack is “a mockery of international law.”

“The culprits of al-Ghouta… must be prosecuted and punished, in order to put the fear of God into those who would consider perpetrating such deceptions in the future,” he wrote.

By the time of the attack, the US and some of its allies blamed Damascus for the chemical attack on Ghouta. However, the Syrian government strongly denied the accusation, saying the attack was carried out by the militants operating inside the country to draw in foreign intervention.

“Exposing false flag operations to the fullest possible extent could be the salvation of humanity; while failing to do so could sound the death knell of our species,” Barrett wrote.

Over 130,000 people have reportedly been killed and millions displaced due to the violence fueled by Western-backed militants in Syria.

Source: Presstv.com

Turkish PM Erdoğan vows to eliminate ‘parallel state’

April 8, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA

One of the most important messages the Turkish people conveyed through the March 30 polls was the authority given to the government for the full elimination of the parallel state, the prime minister has said, vowing they will not show even tiniest hesitation in doing so.

“The Turkish people gave us the vote of confidence. More importantly, they have given us the instruction to fight against the parallel state. They have given us the instruction for the elimination of this parallel structure whose treachery and espionage have come into the picture,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told his parliamentary group on April 8 in his party’s first meeting since the March 30 local polls.

The parallel state is the term the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials are using for the Fethullah Gülen community, or the Hizmet Movement. They accuse the Gülen movement’s members within police and judiciary of plotting against the government.

Erdoğan recalled the illegal listening of a key security meeting at the Foreign Ministry and its leak through social media as one of the latest attempts of espionage at the hands of this parallel state and stressed all measures against the perpetrators will be taken within democracy and the law.

“They will give an account of what they have been doing. But not before the parallel judiciary, but before the people’s judiciary,” he said.

Erdoğan said the Gülen community’s international links and espionage attempts will be scrutinized and informed that he raised the issue in his visit to Azerbaijan last week. He added the government will run after the unregistered economic activities conducted by the Gülen movement and said they will continue to find every Turkish Lira donated to his group.