By: Hambersom Aghbashian
Cengiz Aktar, (Born in 1955 in Istanbul), is a Turkish Professor, Senior Scholar, journalist and writer. He graduated from the Lycée de Galatasaray(Galatasaray High School ) and completed his tertiary education at 
Panthéon-Sorbonne where he received his PhD degree on Economic Epistemology in 1982. He is a member of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences (professor at Bahcesehir University)(1). He is the Chairman of the Department of EU Relations in Istanbul, also a weekly columnist for daily Vatan. Aktar is an expert for Turkey-EU relations, but is also intensively involved in civil society initiatives in Turkey dealing with minority issues.(2).
Cengiz Aktar was one of the initiators of the apology campaign launched in December 2008, as a part of which Turks and Kurds expressed their sympathy for the victims of the events of 1915 (2). The apology came in an open letter that invited Turks to sign an online petition supporting its sentiments. It reads: “My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them.” The contents expose its authors – three scholars, Ahmet Insel, Baskin Oran and Cengiz Aktar, and a journalist, Ali Bayramoglu – to the wrath of the Turkish state, which has prosecuted writers, including the Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, for supporting Armenian genocide claims. (3)
As a former director at the United Nations where he spent 22 years of his professional life, Aktar is one of the leading advocates of Turkey’s integration into the EU. Also he is involved in studying policies of memory regarding ethnic and religious minorities in Turkey. Since 1999 he has taught courses on various EU policies at Galatasaray University and Bahçeşehir University. He is also a columnist for daily Taraf and Today’s Zaman, as well as regular commentator at Açık Radio on EU related developments since 1999. Aktar has published nine books and numerous articles in Turkey and abroad. He is a member and advisor to the French periodical La Revue du Mauss, the Turkish ecological NGO Buğday, the Hrant Dink Foundation and the Aladin Project. He is also a reviewer for the European Commission, DG Research.(4). He met late Hrant Dink In 1999 and had established a close friendships with him.(1)
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“Armenian genocide: Turkey has lost the battle of truth”, this was Cengiz Aktar’s (Opinion – aljazeera-24 Apr 2014), where he mentioned that An empowerered Turkish society is now challenging the state’s denialist paradigm on the tragic events of 1915. According to him ” Today, three patterns emerge in Turkey’s traditional policy towards the events of 1915. First, denialist lobbying activities abroad and efforts to influence the lawmakers, especially in the US ( now co-sponsored by Azeris). Secondly, denials cloaked in scientific covers aimed at persuading the Western academic world, replacing the vulgar denialism. And thirdly, there is a clear attempt to substitute other events for 1915. Dardanelles battle victory in the west and the military debacle of Sarikamis in the east, are being flogged in the official narrative as the historical substitutes to what occurred to Armenians in 1915. Despite these endeavors, Turkey has long lost the battle of truth. The destruction of the Armenian population on its ancestral land is a sheer fact, whatever else you might call it. April 24, 1915 was the dark day when the decision to erase Armenians from Anatolia began to be implemented by the Ottoman government of Young Turks, or the Ittihadists. The rationale behind it was to engineer a homogeneous population composed of Muslims designated to form the backbone of the “yet to be invented” Turkish nation. Thus, there was no place for Christian populations despite their historic presence on those lands. No one is capable of evaluating the consequences to human, political and economic relations throughout Anatolia once the Armenians were eliminated. It is, however, quite certain that the effects of such a wide-reaching elimination operation were enormous.(5)”
1-http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cengiz_Aktar
2-http://www.esiweb.org/index.php?lang=en&id=322&debate_ID=4&slide_ID=24
3- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/08/armenian-genocide-turkey-apology-petition
4-http://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/en/people/cengiz-aktar/
5-http://www.aljazeera.com/category/person/cengiz-aktar