Armenian Question

"The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries is
to stir disturbances, to get the Ottomans to react to violence,
and thus get the foreign powers to intervene".
British Ambassador in Istanbul, Currie, 28 March 1894

• Origins of Armenians

• Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

• Turkish Contact

• Armenians Prosper Under Turkish Rule

• Freedom in Ottoman Empire

• Armenian Revolt

• How Many Armenians Lost?

• Genocide: Armenian Myth

• Developing Armenian Hate Campaign

• Sensible Armenians

Origins of Armenians

There are several theories as to where Armenians originated. These include the Biblical Noah, Urartu, Thracian-Phyrigian, Southern Caucasus and Turanian Theories. When one looks at the details of these theories, it becomes very certain that the Armenians did not originate in Anatolia, nor did they live there for three to four thousand years as they claim. Armenian activists put these ideas forward only to support the claims that the Turks drove them out of their homeland. However they have always been welcome to live and prosper as a member of the Ottoman Empire or as a citizen of the modern Turkish Republic. Unfortunately, when one section of a community embarks upon armed rebellion against the State and collaborates with the enemy during a decisive war, this group deserves to be dealt with harshly.

Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

The Armenian minority in the Ottoman Empire has always enjoyed the status of privilege. In the 19^th century 22 Armenians became ministers, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs in this turbulent era leading up to the collapse of the Empire. This alone shows the degree of trust placed in the Armenian citizens and their reciprocal contribution to the Ottoman administrations.

33 Armenians were selected to the Parliament, 7 were appointed as Ambassadors and 11 as Consul Generals. 11 Armenians served as professors in universities.

It is not thus surprising to see the Ottoman administration react with disappointment when they witnessed great numbers of Armenians revolting against the Empire when their loyalty was needed most. The Armenian revolt committee 'Dashnak' ordered the members of their community to take up arms saying:

"As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman armies have started to retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The Ottoman armies thus will be placed between two fires. If the Ottoman armies advance against the Russians, on the other hand, their Armenian soldiers should desert their units with their arms, form bandit forces, and unite with the Russians"

Turkish Contact

According to the Armenian historian Kevork Aslan [1]:

" Armenians lived as local notables. They had no feeling of national unity. There were no political bonds or ties among them. Their only attachments were to the neighbouring notables. Thus whatever national feelings they had were local".

Armenian principalities seem to have existed for centuries under the control of various great empires and states, often changing sides to secure their maximum advantage. Roman historian Tacitus wrote in his Annalum Liber:

"The Armenians change their position relating to Rome and the Persian Empire; sometimes supporting one and sometimes the other ... they are strange people".

The Armenians' lack of unity and strength, combined with their disability to commit themselves to one ruler made them susceptible to successive relocations and deportations throughout the history. They fled from Persians, settled in Kayseri area; deported by Sasanians to central Iran; by Arabs into Syria; by Byzantines into Central Anatolia and Istanbul, Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Transylvania and Crimea; Crusaders sent them to Crete, Italy and Cyprus; Mongols pushed them towards Kazan and Astrakhan; Finally Russians relocated them from Crimea to Central Russia and Caucassus. Thus, they formed something called "Armenian Diaspora" centuries before the Ottomans deported them in 1915 for their betrayal of the country.

The Armenians broke away from the Byzantine Church in 451 AD, leading to centuries long clashes with Byzantium until the Turks settled in Anatolia and liberated them from Byzantine oppression in late 11^th century. The Seljuk Turkish ruler Alpaslan conquered in 1064 the remnants of the last Armenian principality 'Ani'- which was terminated by the Byzantians in 1045. Previous Byzantine destruction of the Armenian principality and the oppression of local population provided the catalyst for their collaboration with the conquering Turkish armies.

Another Armenian principality was formed in 1080 when the Byzantines deported the inhabitants of Eastern principalities to Cilicia. This principality maintained good relations with the Turks even when it provided assistance to the Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land. This relationship with "unbelievers' displeased the Armenian Gregorian Church, with the resulting internal divisions playing an important part in the Principality's conquest by the Mamluks in 1375. The most significant consequence of this last Armenian principality was increased divisions among the orthodoxy, which remain significant to this day.

Armenians Prosper Under Turkish Rule

Armenian propagandists claim that the Turks mistreated non-Muslims, in particular Armenians throughout the history, to support their 'genocide' claims. Otherwise it would be very difficult for them to explain how the Turks, who lived side by side with their Armenian neighbours in total harmony for centuries, suddenly decided to massacre them all.

The fact is the Armenian community was free to conduct their internal affairs as they pleased, including religious activities and education. There was never any attempt to convert Armenians or other non-Muslims to Islam. The Armenian spiritual leaders even went to Sultan Meliksah to thank him for his protection. The Armenian historian Mathias of Edessa relates that:

"Meliksah's heart is full of affection and goodwill for Christians, he has treated the sons of Jesus Christ very well, and he has given the Armenian people peace, affluence and happiness" [2]

Turkish tradition and Muslim law dictated that non-Muslims should be well treated in Turkish and Muslim empires. Therefore people from different religions were treated with an unprecedented tolerance which was reflected into the philosophies of great philosophers such as Yunus Emre and Mevlana. Their mottoes "we have the same view for all 72 nations" and "you are welcome, whoever you are, whatever you are". This approach was in stark contrast with the mentality of the Christian rulers who have slaughtered Christians of other sects, let alone non-Christians such as Muslims and Jews throughout history. Byzantine persecution of Gregorian Armenians, Venetian persecution of the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of the Morea and Aegean islands, Hungarian persecution of the Bogomils, Spanish persecution of Jews, Inquisition of the Dark Ages, Nazi persecution of Jews and recently Serbian slaughter of Bosnians.

Fatih Sultan Mehmed's conquest of Istanbul in 1453 opened a new era of religious, political, social, economic and cultural prosperity for the Armenian population. Fatih issued a decree establishing the Armenian Patriarchy in Istanbul under Patriarch Hovakim. As a result of this, thousands of Armenians emigrated to Istanbul from Iran, the Caucassus, eastern and central Anatolia, Balkans and Crimea - not because of persecution or forced dislocation but because Fatih made his Empire a true centre of Armenian life. The Armenian community thus expanded and prospered together with the Ottoman Empire until their uprising in the darkest hours of the Ottomans.

By Ottoman law, all Christian subjects who were not Greek Orthodox were included in the Armenian Gregorian millet. This included Paulicians, Yakubites, Bogomils and Gypsies leading to substantial disputes in later times as to the total number of Armenians living in the Empire. Thus the estimates of Armenians deported after their uprising vary greatly. Armenian figures go as high as 2.5 million whereas British sources come closer to the actual Ottoman Census statistics of 1 million.

Freedom in Ottoman Empire

Freedom granted to non-Muslims by the Ottomans was so well known in Europe that the Empire became the major place of refuge for those fleeing religious persecution. Thousands of Jews fled from persecution from Spanish rulers in 15^th century to Ottoman lands followed by Jews in Central and East Europe as well as Russia. Catholics and Protestant also fled to the Ottoman Empire, often entering the service of the sultans and contributing to the military and governmental life. When Napoleon Bonaparte tried to stir revolt among the Armenian Catholics of Syria and Palestine to support his invasion of 1798-1799, his ambassador Sebastiani in Istanbul replied that:

"The Armenians are so content with their lives here that a revolt is impossible"

Turkish tolerance towards non-Muslims was so well known that many famous historians commented on their virtue:

Voltaire:
" The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught the Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory"

Philip Marshall Brown:

"Despite the great victory they won, Turks have generously granted to the people in the conquered regions the right to administer themselves according to their own rules and traditions"

J.W.Arnold:
" It is an undeniable historical fact that the Turkish armies have never interfered with the religious and cultural affairs in the areas they conquered."

Even Politis who was the foreign minister in the Greek government led by miserably defeated Prime Minister Venizelos:

"The rights and interests of the Greeks in Turkiye could not be better protected by any other power but the Turks"

Armenian Revolt

As with many other conflicts in Europe and Asia, sources of the Armenian revolt can be traced back to religious and political exploitation. The expansionist policies of the Czarist Russia in 1800's were aimed at reaching the Pacific Ocean in the East, Middle of Europe in the West and the Mediterranean in the South. Russia sought to undermine Ottoman strength from within by stirring the national ambitions of the Sultan's Christian peoples, in particular those with whom it shared a common Orthodox religious heritage, the Greeks and the Slavs in the Balkans and the Armenians. [3] Russian agents fanned the fires of the Greek Revolution and stirred the beginnings of Pan-Slavism in Serbia and Bulgaria. Other agents moved into the Caucasus and secured influence over the Gregorian Church of Echmiadzin, eventually convincing Catholicos Nerses Aratakes to lead a force of 60,000 Armenians in support of the Russian Army fighting Iran in 1827. Some Armenians who left Ottoman lands and emigrated to Russia were disillusioned with what they found in Russia and returned, only to find that their homes occupied by Muslim refugees escaping persecution in the Russia. This led to many serious disputes in the 1880's and 1890's.

Russia was not alone in pretending to 'protect' the Ottoman Christians. England and France sponsored missionary activities to convert many Armenians into Protestantism and Catholicism, which led to the creation of Armenian Catholic Church in 1830 and the Protestant Church in 1847. Ottoman - Russian war (1877 - 78) ended with the Treaty of San Stephano which incorporated a clause ensuring that the Russian forces would stay in Eastern Anatolia until administrative regulations favouring the Armenians are put into place. Britain feared that a 'Greater Armenia' in the Eastern Anatolia would undermine her links with colonial India so, in return for British Occupation of Cyprus, Britain agreed to upset the provisions of San Stephanos by organising the Congress of Berlin - forcing Russia to evacuate Eastern Anatolia. From this time onward, Britain decided to consider the 'Armenain Question' as its own particular problem, and to regularly intervene to secure its solution according to its own ideas.

After the Berlin Congress, Armenians became the pawn in the hands of the British and the Russians to advance their imperial ambitions. When the Tories handed the power over to the liberals in 1880, British foreign policy underwent dramatic change against the Ottoman Empire with consulates opening in every corner of the Eastern Anatolia to improve contact with local Christian population. The Armenian Patriarch Horen Ashikian wrote in his History of Armenia " The Protestant missionaries distributed in large numbers to various places in Turkiye made propaganda in favour of England and stirred the Armenians to desire autonomy under British protection. In pursuit of these policies, various Armenian revolutionary societies were established in Eastern Anatolia as early as 1880. However, these societies had little influence, as the local Armenians were too content with their life. Therefore they eventually moved outside the Ottoman territories establishing the Hunchak Committee at Geneva in 1887 and Dashnak Committee at Tiflis in 1890, both aiming at 'liberation' from Ottoman rule.

'Terror was to be used as a method of protecting the people and winning their confidence in the Hunchak program. The Ottoman government itself was not to be the only focus of terrorist attacks. To assist them in carrying out all of these terrorist acts, the party was to organise an exclusive branch specifically devoted to performing acts of terrorism. The most opportune time to institute the general rebellion for carrying out immediate objectives was when Turkiye was engaged in war'.

'The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak), in order to achieve its purpose through rebellion, organises revolutionary groups; to wage fight, and to subject to terrorism the Government officials, the traitors, ... ; to subject the government institutions to destruction and pillage'.

Thus, as the Armenian writers freely admitted, the goal of their revolutionary societies was to stir revolution, and their method was terror. This method was utilised by others during the course of history both before and after the Armenian revolts. The first incident was at Erzurum in 1890, others following at Kumkapi, Kayseri, Yozgat, Corum, Merzifon, Sasun, Zeytun, and Van. All these revolts and riots were presented by the Armenian revolutionary societies in Europe and America as the killing of Armenians by Turks, stirring up considerable emotion among Christian peoples. The Armenian propaganda web sites are still using the same tactic in this day and still gaining recognition by the Western politicians.

There were many honest western diplomatic and consular representatives who reported what was actually happening, that it was the Armenian revolutionary societies that were doing the slaughtering to secure European intervention on their behalf.

The British Vice Consul Williams wrote from Van on 4 March 1896:

"The Dashnaks and Hunchaks have terrorised their own countrymen, stirred up Muslim people with their thefts and insanities, and paralysed all efforts made to carry out reforms; all the events taken place in Anatolia are the responsibility of the crimes committed by the Armenian revolutionary committees"

Russian Consul General in Bitlis and Van ; General Mayewski, reported in December 1912:
" The Dashnak revolutionary society is working to stir up a situation in which Muslims and Armenians will attack each other, and thus pave the way for Russian intervention "

In reaction to these revolts, the Ottomans did what every other country does in such circumstances, sending armed forces against rebels to restore order, and for the most part succeeding quickly since very few of the local Armenian population supported these rebels. However, for the press and public of Europe, stirred by tales spread by the missionaries and the revolutionary societies, every restoration of order by the Ottomans was automatically considered a "massacre" of Christians - while thousands of slaughtered Muslims being ignored. The same picture is very much valid in the eve of year 2000 with western insensitivity during Serbian massacres in Bosnia and indiscriminate slaughter of retreating Iraqi army at the end of Gulf War while elevating the suffering of Christians in Southern Sudan, ignoring the misery of the rest.

Whatever the claims of the Armenian revolutionary committees, the population of the Armenians in Eastern provinces was only 15% according to Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1910, making it unlikely for them to gain independence without massive intervention by foreign powers to push out the Turkish majority and replace them with Armenian emigrants. The Russians, on the other hand, deceived the Armenians for years by fuelling their independence dreams as in the words of the Armenian writer Borian:

"Czarist Russia at no time wanted to assure Armenian autonomy. For this reason, one must consider the Armenians who were working for Armenian autonomy as no more than agents of the Czar to attach Eastern Anatolia to Russia"

The beginning of World War I gave the Armenian nationalists the ideal excuse to put their plans into practice. Louise Nalbanjian relates that " The Armenian revolutionary committees considered that the most opportune time to begin a general uprising to achieve their goals was when the Ottoman Empire was in a state of war".

The Russian Armenians joined the Russian army in preparing an attack on the Ottomans as soon as the war was declared. The Catholicos of Echimiadzin assured the Russian General Governor of the Caucasus, Vranzof-Dashkof, that " in return for Russia's forcing the Ottomans to make reforms for the Armenians, all the Russian Armenians would support the Russian war effort without conditions". The Catholicos later told the Czar that " The liberation of the Armenians in Anatolia would lead to the establishment of an autonomous Armenia separated from Turkish suzerainty and that this Armenia could be made possible with the protection of Russia".

The Dashnak committee ordered the Armenians who were preparing to revolt within the Ottoman Empire:
" As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman armies have started to retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The Ottoman armies thus will be placed between two fires. On the other hand, the Armenians in the Ottoman army should desert their units with their weapons and unite with the Russians".

As the Russian forces advanced into Ottoman territory in Eastern Anatolia, they were guided by Ottoman and Russian Armenians, who were joined by the Armenian deserters from the Ottoman army. These deserters quickly formed guerilla units attacking Ottoman supply depots in an effort to cripple the Ottomans in their war against the Russians.

Within a few months, these Armenian guerilla forces, operating in close cooperation with the Russians, were savagely attacking Turkish cities, towns and villages in the East; massacring their inhabitants without mercy, while at the same time working to sabotage the Ottoman war effort by destroying roads and bridges. The atrocities committed by the Armenian volunteer forces accompanying the Russians were so barbaric that the Russian commanders themselves were compelled to withdraw them from the front and send them to rear guard duties. Armenian savagery was not confined to Muslim targets. They were not happy with the failure of Greeks and Jews to fully support their revolution. As a result, they massacred thousands of Greeks in Trabzon area and hundreds of Jews around Hakkari region

Former Ottoman parliamentarian, Hamparsum Boyaciyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces that ravaged the Turkish villages using the nickname "Murad" ordered that " All Turkish children also should be killed as they form a danger to the Armenian nation" . It is surprising to see the same lack of compassion in the Bosnian conflict where the Serbian barbarians murdered their long tome neighbours and their children without hesitation only recently.

While the Armenians and Russians were attacking from behind, Ottomans were trying to halt the advance of the Allies along a wide front extending from Galicia to Iraq. After the massacres at Van, the Ottoman government made one final effort to secure Armenian support for the war, summoning the Patriarch and the Armenian Parliamentarians to a meeting where they were warned that drastic measures would be taken unless the Armenians stopped slaughtering Muslims. Armenian atrocities continued and the government finally acted, on April 24, 1915 the Armenian revolutionary committees were closed and 235 of their leaders were arrested.

This is the date, which has been annually commemorated by Armenian activists and nationalists around the world in recent years. However, no ' massacre' took place at this or any other time during the war. Great care was taken to make certain that the Armenians were treated carefully and compassionately as they were deported to Syria, Palestine and Iraq. The Ottoman Council of Ministers thus ordered:
" When those of the Armenians resident in aforementioned towns and villages who have to be moved are transferred to their places of settlement and are on the road, their comfort must be assured and their lives and property protected; after their arrival their food should be paid for out of Refugees' Appropriations until they are definitely settled in their new homes. Property and land should be distributed to them in accordance with their previous financial situation as well as their current needs; and for those among them needing further help, the government should build houses, provide cultivators and artisans with seed, tools and equipment .... This order is intended against the expansion of the Armenian Revolutionary Committees; therefore do not execute the order in a manner that might cause mutual massacre of Armenians and Muslims".

Out of some 700,000 Armenians who were deported in this way until 1917, certainly some lives were lost as a result of large scale military and guerilla activities going on in the areas that they passed, as well as the blood feuds which some tribal forces sought to carry out along the route. In addition, deportations took place at a time when the Empire was suffering from severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies as well as large-scale plague and famine. It should be remembered that these losses were not confined to Armenian deportees, the entire ottoman army of 90,000 was lost in the eastern Anatolia as well as 4,000,000 Ottoman subjects of all religions as a result of the same conditions that afflicted the deportees.

Armenian activists, and their terror organisation ASALA, have been trying to justify their world wide terror campaigns of 1970's by claiming that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed intentionally during the deportations by the Ottomans. It is disturbing to see that despite the grand human rights declarations made by so called "civilised nations of the World", the same countries ignore totally human losses suffered by Muslims during the war and offer unequivocal support to Armenian propaganda, elevating the Armenians to 'privileged peoples' status. It is equally frustrating to witness the same 'civilised countries' totally ignoring the massacres in Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia in recent years because they had no direct material interest in saving lives or bringing the murderers to justice. Tacit or official alliances are still in practice between Russia and Serbia reviving their Pan-Slavic ambitions during the Bosnia and Kosovo conflicts. Western hesitancy fuelling the Serbian arrogance towards Nato and the United Nations has reduced their power to that of paper tigers. The main reason, one may argue that the oppressed are Muslims and oppressors are Christians; how similar to the reason why the West is so fervently behind the Armenian claims against Turkiye.

How Many Armenians Lost?

As always, figures vary according to how close the sources are to the Armenians.

Talat Pasha, a favorite Armenian target, stated at the last congress of the Union and Progress Party that the losses were around 300,000. A French Clergymen, Monsigneour Touchet, informed in 1916 that the dead would be around 500,000, but added that this figure might have been exaggerated. British historian Toynbee estimates the number to be 600,000. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives the same number in its 1918 edition. Head of the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, Bogos Noubar, declared that after the war there were 280,000 Armenians living in Turkiye and 700,000 have emigrated to other countries. He also estimates that there were 1,300,000 Armenians living in Ottoman lands before the war, concluding that the Armenian losses during the war were around 300,000.

Of course, the Armenian activists in an effort to elevate their claims to more dramatic heights, kept inflating these figures every year until they reached figures like 1.5 to 2 million which is more than the total Armenian population of 1,295,000 given in official Ottoman census for 1914 and adopted by Bogos Noubar.

Genocide: Armenian Myth

The definition of 'Genocide' contains three elements according to the resolution passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1948:

1. Aimed at a religious, national, ethnic or religious group

2. Murder of the members of the group, forced transfer of one group into another group, subjecting the members of a group to conditions which will bring about their physical destruction

3. There must be an intent of destroying a group

The third element is the most important factor missing in Armenian claims. The Armenian activists, terrorists and nationalists alike have been trying to substantiate their claims of 'intent' by offering certain "Andonian Documents" as proof. Published in Paris in 1920 by an Armenian author called Aram Andonian, these telegrams were supposed to have been found at the office of an Ottoman official named Naim Bey when General Allenby's forces captured Aleppo in 1918. But when the British Foreign Office inquired about them at the war office, and with Allenby himself, it was discovered that they have not been discovered by the British army but, rather, had been produced by an Armenian group in Paris. In addition, examination of the crude Andonian forgeries revealed that they did not resemble Ottoman administrative documents in form, script or phraseology.

The writers of the Andonian forgeries made several fundamental mistakes in preparing the documents ordering the genocide against Armenians:

1. The signature of the Governor of Aleppo, Mustafa Abdulhalik Bey, on the documents proved to be forged

2. The Governor of Aleppo on the date of the documents was not Mustafa Abdulhalik Bey, but Bekir Sami Bey

3. Numerous errors were made in conversions of Muslim Rumi and Christian calendars, therefore projecting the events one year into the future.

4. The ciphers used bear no resemblance to the current ones that were being used in this period.

5. According to these forgeries, the ciphers were unchanged during a period of six months. In actual fact, they were being changed every two months.

6. Incorrect use of the Islamic injunction 'besmele' which would be unforgivable in any Ottoman official letter.

7. Grammatical errors, expressions, contradictions and self condemnations for alleged crimes which were hastily put together to portray confessions of Ottoman Turks.

8. At a time when the British were frantically looking for anything to be used as 'evidence' against a group of Ottoman officials accused of 'Armenian incidents', their failure to utilise the 'Andonian documents', strongly suggests that the British Government was fully aware of the nature of these forgeries.

At the end of the war, the Armenian population was substantially in place in Western Anatolia, Thrace and Istanbul. Had the Ottoman government ordered the 'massacres', evidently, they too would have been killed. If the Ottoman government wanted to eliminate all Armenians in the Empire, it could have done so far more easily by killing and disposing of them where they lived, rather than undertaking a large scale deportation of those in the Eastern war zones under the eyes of the foreign observers.

Developing Armenian Hate Campaign

Professor Mumtaz Soysal of Ankara University makes an analysis of Armenian Hate campaign through the generations following World War I:

The first generation of deportees consists of those who suffered and whose kin were the victims of the war. Some of these Armenians reacted to this situation with a feeling of revenge and engaged themselves in individual acts of terrorism against Ottoman officials.

The second generation of Armenians abroad consisted of those who have adapted themselves into their surroundings and thanks to their remarkable qualities as a hard working and artistically talented people, distinguished themselves in their new society, achieving prosperity and popularity.

The third generation of Armenians are reacting to this progressive integration which they fear will result in disappearance of the Armenian culture, thereby trying to resurrect history by committing acts of violence in an effort to create links to the past.

But the third generation of Armenians who live in Turkiye are not going through this identity crisis. They have all the means of perpetuating the characteristics of their ethnic group. The cultural exchange between the Turkish and Armenian communities continues and the two communities share life in peace without grievances. It should be noted that even before the onset of terrorism, which swept over Turkiye prior to 1980, the Armenians in Turkiye have never taken part in acts of violence. Few incidents were the work of Armenians indoctrinated and trained abroad.

It is this reciprocal tolerance and peaceful coexistence between the Turkish and the Armenian communities that disturb the young Armenians abroad ( Probably because the hate driven Armenian youth abroad can not accept how their peers in Turkiye can live in complete harmony with the rest of the community - our interpretation). Their frustration is easily visible in the presentation and the tone of their web sites that give themselves cult-gang appearances with names like "Dashnak Dogs".

So why does the Armenian third generation abroad insists to talk about supposed "genocide" of seventy years ago?

Because they need to use an accusation of universal dimensions to rally international support for their cause. Genocide is a crime against humanity and as such the instigators of such a crime must be punished regardless of time at which it is committed. In the eyes of the Armenian terrorists, this crime can be attributed to the entire Turkish nation, therefore all Turkish citizens must be punished, including those who have not even been born at the time of the incidents. This is why the Armenian activists prefer to distort history and describe the incidents of World War I as 'genocide'.

Sensible Armenians

Despite wide spread and well organised terror and propaganda campaings, opponents of Turkish Republic find it difficult to present a united front in their endeavours. As the famous saying goes: One can not cover the Sun with mud, a very fitting description for the Armenian claims of genocide!. The Western philosophy is "if there is a lot of noise about an issue then it must be true", meaning the silent masses do not count.

One American born Armenian person is giving support to the Turkish answer, while taking pride in his Turkish heritage. There are thousands of these Turkish Armenians living in Turkiye who echoe the same convictions but those born and bred in USA still choose to ignore their kinsmen; continuing their senseless perpetual hate campaigns.

Mr Edward Tasci is an Armenian American, born in the USA from Armenian Mother and Assyrian Father who emigrated there in 1914 after deportation by the Ottoman administration. He declares proudly that he is a "Turkish Armenian" and maintains that the American and the French parliamentarians have been the tool of Armenian misinformation campaign for decades. His plans for corercting this historical mistake include exhibitions and movies which will present the truth as he sees it. Mr Tasci says that he is going to fight for the disclosure of the other side of the coin to all decision makers with common sense who, at the moment, refuse to accept that they have been misled since early 1900s.

Another example of an American Armenian who decided not to take her parents' decades long hate mongering on face value and visit Turkiye to meet the 'monsters' who are being held responsible for events that took place almost a century ago. Ms Carol Kelejian's page at http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/ccsi/travels/kelejian.htm is well worth a visit. Her parents and grandparents apparently saturated her psyche with stories of horror and turned her into an utter Turkophobic since her early childhood in the 1950s. It was only recently and only after meeting some Turkish people in America that she started questioning her parents and decided to visit her previous homeland.

Bibliography

1.  Aslan, Kevork. L'Armenie et les Armeniens, Istanbul, 1914

2.  Mathias of Edessa, Chronicles, Nr. 129

3.  Center for Strategic Research, Armenian Claims and Historical Facts, Ankara 1988

4.  Nalbandjian, Louise, Armenian Revolutionary Movement, University of California Press, 1963

5.  Papazian, K. S., Patriotism Perverted, Boston, Baker Press, 1934

6.  British Blue Book, Nr.6 (1894), pp.222 - 223

7.  General Mayewski, Statistique des Provinces de Van et de Bitlis, Petersburg, 1916, pp. 11-13

8.  Tchalkouchian,Gr., Le Livre Rouge, Paris, 1919, p.12

9.  Tchalkouchian, Gr., op. cit.

10. Hocaoglu, Mehmed, Tarihte Ermeni Mezalimi ve Ermeniler, Istanbul, 1976, pp.570-571

11. Journal de Guerre du Deuxieme Regiment d'Artillerie de forteresse Russe d'Erzeroum, 1919

12. Schemsi, Kara, Turcs et Armeniens Devant l'Historie, Geneve, Imprimerie Nationale, 1919, p.41

13. Council of Ministers Decrees, Prime Ministry's Archives, Istanbul, Vol. 198, Decree 1331/163, May 1915

14. Center for Strategic Research, Armenian Claims and Historical Facts, Ankara, 1998, pp. 33-38

15. Soysal, Mumtaz, Testimony at the Orly Trial, Paris, 1985