:::TurkishPAC:::

Introduction

Print
Email

Published: 16 November 2008

Written by Administrator

This site is under continuous update and improvement. Some links may not yet work; some text may still be incomplete. Our volunteer historians are working, as their time allows, to add original documents, archival information, and commentary to each section. If you have specific questions, suggestions, or discussions re: any part of the material, or if you have information and original documents that may strengthen the arguments in this site or corrections and suggestions to what is written in these pages please do not hesitate to write us.
If you would like to see a compact list of the archival documents we utilize in these pages, please click here. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

FOREWORD

On Page 1, paragraph 3 of a letter dated April 6, 2005; addressed to the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Turkish Republic; and circulated on May 17, 2005 by the Armenian National Congress of America (ANCA) ; President Robert Melson, Vice President Israel Charny and Secretary-Treasurer Steven Jacobs of the "International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)" claimed that

"On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk Government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens- an unarmed Christan minority population. More than one million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture and forced death marches. Another million fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its historic homeland of 2500 years."

This claim summarizes, in a nutshell, the century-long defamation campaign against the Republic of Turkey, against her citizens, against their forefathers and their posterity, and against the Turkish National Heritage in general.

The claim can be broken down into its essential elements as follows:

In 1915, the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire were living in their 2500 year-old historic homeland;
Their number exceeded 2 million:
They were unarmed; and
The machinery of the Young Turk Government of the Ottoman Empire exterminated or exiled them, for no other reason than they were Christian and Armenian.

In order to refute the claim, each and every one of the 4 statements above must be proven wrong based on historical evidence. Fortunately, available evidence points unequivocally to the facts that:

The Armenian Plateau was the historic homeland of nobody;
In 1915, the total Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire did not exceed 1 million; not more than 700,000 of these were relocated, of whom around 400,000 were accounted for in Allied-held territories at the end of WWI;
The Armenians were neither innocent nor unarmed; and
There is not a single authentic document that proves that the Young Turk Government centrally planned, out of bare malice, the extermination of the Armenians.

Furthermore, there is convincing evidence that:

The people who have been parading for centuries as "Armenians" are not even that, nor is their country "Armenia". Their historically accurate name is Hayik, and their country's is Hayastan. That is how the world should call them.
The only Armenian Genocide is the genocide that has been committed, and is still being committed, by the Armenians against the Muslim population of Turks, Azeris, Kurds and Tartars.

On the following pages, we attempt to address each one of these points in the light of original archival documents. The information is intended for everybody to use freely in their verbal and written communications for the defense of the Turkish National honor.

Next: Historical Background