Anadolu Agency:
5/6/2003
NIGDE – Prof. Dr. Israfil Kurtcebe, Chairman of History Department in
Faculty of Science and Letters of Akdeniz University, said on
Tuesday, ”a total of one million 300 thousand Armenians were living
in Anatolia in a period when 1,5 million Armenians were alleged to be
slaughtered.”
Making a speech in a conference on ”Armenian Issue and Role of Big
Countries”, Kurtcebe said that genocide allegations which Armenians
clung tightly did not have any basis and Ottoman State had never
committed such a genocide.
Noting that the number of slaughtered people, which Armenians claimed
so, was not clear, Kurtcebe said, ”unfortunately, some publication
organs, which are known with their seriousness, are participating
with this auction. For instance, while the number of killed Armenians
was published as 600 thousand in 1918 edition of Encyclopedia
Britannica, this number is increased to 1.5 million in its 1968
edition. There is a basic data which is considered as base. It is
Armenian population in that period. There must be 1.5 million people
for 1.5 million people to die. A total of one million 300 thousand
Armenians were living in Anatolia in a period when 1.5 million
Armenians were claimed to be slaughtered. When the cooperation which
Armenians made with other countries stranded Ottoman army, 2,435
Armenian committee members in Istanbul were arrested. That is the day
which Armenians call ‘genocide’ and blame us for killing 1.5 million
Armenians, the day when those committee members were arrested.”
Noting that Turkish people had more losses than Armenians had in that
period, Kurtcebe said, ”if it is necessary to find a responsible for
the past incidents, those are Armenian committees which deceive their
citizens with vain promises to use them for their own aspirations and
shed blood in East Anatolia. Armenians were at most 15 percent of
East Anatolia population and they lived as a minority among Turkish
people. There is nobody who denies this. But, living in a certain
place in a certain period of time does not give anybody the right to
own those lands. It is obvious what the world will be like if every
nation or community try to return to the lands which they had lived
earlier or demand those lands. Furthermore, nobody expelled
Armenians.”
Yorumlar kapatıldı.