Turkey’s Century Old Denial About Armenian Genocide

Public Editor

New York Times

1 City Hall

New York, NY 10007

 

Dear Mrs. Sullivan:

 

In his biased piece of journalism Mr. Tim Arango seems to ignore the most profound fact on this issue: lack of legal evidence and judgment rendered by a competent international tribunal following due process and proving intent to destroy. Genocide, namely, is a legal concept, which needs to be proven, not simply alleged as Mr. Arango freely and loosely does.

 

As opposed to other genocides committed in Germany, former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, where there is clear legal basis established by a court of law, the allegations of genocide against the Turks could not be proven in courts.

 

In 1919 the victorious British rounded up 144 Ottoman officials to try them for crimes against Armenians. After 2 years and 4 months of detention on the island of Malta the British prosecutor general had to exonerate and release all of them, since after combing through all Ottoman, British and American archives no such evidence was found.

 

In a landmark decision on Dec 17, 2013 the European Court of Human Rights set forth that the discredited Armenian claims could not be proven. The ECHR “doubted that there could be a general consensus… given that historical research was, by definition, open to discussion and a matter of debate, without necessarily giving rise to final conclusions or to the assertion of objective  and absolute truths”.

 

In an evil distortion of facts Mr. De Waal states “ There clearly were Armenian revolutionaries and rebels who were INTENDING (my emphasis) to side with Russia,”. The man should abdicate his historian credentials as it is an established fact even by Armenian scholars that the Armenian rebels razed tens of towns killing more than 200,000 Turks, Kurds, Jews before they had to be  relocated. Your other historian Mr. Akcam is a pseudo historian with dubious credentials financed by Armenian sources, a fact acknowledged by the University of Minnesota.