Yilgun, if you did not include that final statement in your article, some of your readers would get curious about the sources that you referred to. Claiming that the enemy of the Turks are the enemy of the entire world is not only wrong but also utterly ridiculous.

Did everyone base their arguments on nationalistic feelings, there would be no need for science at all. We all want to get rid of the patriotic aspects of history and favour scientific objectivity instead, no matter how difficult to achieve in real life that would be.

If we were to write history with a notion like yours, what difference would there be between that and the legends or annals of the distant past?

The real world history and European History between 1750 -1923 will show and give you and prove the answer together with historical documents clearly...

to stick on history's pages and to use historical materials for the political aims.İf thats an usefull method i think never possible to find an innocent nation or country,Coz history2s pages full with planty similar humanity crimes,and i think sometime to be intellectual gives more harm then to goodness for the falks and i believe that knowladge is nice and usefull when way to peace&friendship.And not easy to understand why some silly people like or prefer to creat discussions with the bad and sad experiences of history while the more peacfull and friendly tomorrows waiting us on the future.peace always better then hate against whatever happened in the deep of history....AND İ BELİEVE THAT TO BE PEACFULL SHEEPHERD ALWAYS BETTER THEN TO BE HATEFULL İNTELLECTUAL....

Why is it significant whether the US government “condemns” the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians?

It is significant because to this day, while most of the rest of the world acknowledges the historical truth of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey continues to deny that it happened. Turkish Penal Code Section 301 actually makes it a crime in Turkey to discuss the murders of the Armenians as an “insult to Turkishness.”

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was recently gunned down in the street by a nationalistic Turk. Before his death he was prosecuted under section 301 for writing about the Armenian Genocide. His son, as well, was just prosecuted under that same law for publishing some of his father’s writings on the Genocide. You cannot turn a blind eye to a nation that refuses to admit a horrific period of its past.

Denial is the last and final stage of Genocide. To allow a country such as Turkey to rewrite history and deny the truth on a matter of such great magnitude is to allow those who would commit atrocities in places like Darfur to believe that they can get away with their evil. Hitler looked back at the Armenian Genocide and said, “Who today remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”

When a country such as the US sends a loud and clear statement that any Genocide, even one that occurred 90 years ago, is unacceptable, the world will listen and Turkey may just take an unpleasant yet honest look at its history.

To me the question is Turkey, really, what’s the problem with admitting it was a genocide? It’s not like Japan went under when it admitted the horrendous things they did to the Korean, Chinese, and Japanese “comfort women” from WWII.

we r the citizens of a great country which has a password ''PEACE İN COUNTRY ,PEACE ON WORLD',so who are blaming us with genocide they have to look at theirs today,such a shame to blamed from some countries with a humanity crime while their backrounds full with many tears and bloods????Yes Genocide is a humanity crime and noone never can deny of that,but whats the profit of to creat new discussions and to creat new strong nationalist behaviours?so everyone have to be a bit calm and have to think abit more while talking about history,we all have to work for only peace,no need to be history scientist ,to be a bit loving will fix all problems......

I only want to say:

The wars are created to obtain the power of fews politics people, and never will finish coz the illness of "power and avarice" does not have end...

We must forgive the grandfather's mistakes.

How many generations more will inherit the hatred of the errors of the past?

MAKE LOVE, NO WAR!

What has the House Committee achieved?

by Sahin Alpay



On Oct. 11 the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US House of Representatives decided by a vote of 27 to 21 to adopt a draft resolution that condemns the “Armenian genocide.” A similar draft resolution was adopted by the committee in 2000, but then-President Clinton had succeeded in persuading the Republican speaker to withdraw the measure. President Bush, however, seems unlikely to convince the Democratic speaker of the House, who is expected to take the resolution to the floor of the House before Nov. 22. The Senate is unlikely to pass a similar measure even if it is adopted by the House, and the resolution is non-binding. Still, it is worth asking what the House committee has achieved.
For history: During the World War I Armenian nationalists backed by Russia attempted to establish an independent Armenian state in Ottoman territory. They killed a large number of Turks and Muslims in this effort. The Ottoman rulers responded by ordering forced deportation of all Armenian subjects (with the exception mainly of those residing in Istanbul and Izmir) to the Syrian desert. According to objective sources nearly 650,000 Armenians perished on the way due to diseases, starvation and massacres by security forces and bandits. An equal number survived the deportation and migrated to the West, settling mainly in the US and France. Some were saved by converting to Islam. The committee decision does not prove that the Ottoman rulers ordered mass killing of Armenians. Some historians will still consider the event only as a great human tragedy caused by war, and others will still call it a genocide of the Armenians by the Turks.

For the US: The committee vote shows once more that lobbies play an important role in American politics, that the Armenian lobby is growing stronger and that G.W. Bush is a lame-duck president with dwindling influence over the Congress.

For Turkey: The committee vote indicates that Ankara’s efforts to stop the resolution are increasingly ineffective and that even the Americans who oppose it do so in fear of its potential to harm US interests. The Turkish public is now putting greater pressure on the government to take measures to retaliate against the US in response to the committee vote. Turks will now be less inclined to discuss and learn more about what really happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915. The anti-US sentiment in Turkey, the US’s closest ally in the Muslim world -- already strong due partly to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims in Iraq, and partly to the failure of the US to hinder the PKK from staging raids into Turkey from northern Iraq -- will continue to rise.

For Turkey-Armenia relations: Yerevan’s policy of trying to force Turkey to establish diplomatic relations and to open the borders with Armenia by supporting genocide resolutions in Western parliaments is clearly keeping Ankara from considering any such policy change.

Finally, a few words about how those who support Turkey’s further democratization and closer integration with the West should assess the House committee vote. There is no doubt that the House committee has opened the way for further deterioration of Turkish-American and Turkish-Armenian relations. The voices of those in Turkey who are against further democratization and closer integration with the West, those who demand military intervention in Iraq not only against the PKK but also against the Kurdish regional government, are now louder.

Against all odds, those who are for peace and democracy in Turkey have to continue to call on the Ankara to follow a course dictated by reason and not sentiment. Ankara should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of a cross-border operation into Iraq, of measures against the US and absolutely avoid steps that can hurt Turkey’s long-term national interests. Why not leave aside the debate as to whether it was genocide or not and try to seek better relations with Yerevan by establishing diplomatic relations and opening the borders with Armenia? This may not only open the way for a general Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, but also place Ankara in a better position to help overcome the problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia.