I visited Turkey about 3–4 months ago. Landed in Ataturk airport. Passport control, a long long line where most of people from different nationalities were waiting to get through. Some got rejected upon the arrival, apparently they had to pay a fee and some other issues which made me absolute nervous about what’s about to happen! European citizens been rejected for some reasons and for me, an Iraninan passport holder…our father in heaven, even though I haven’t been a good son, just this one time please.
“Passport, please!”. Now let me get this straight that up to that time I’ve had loads of experiences on passing passport control. Most of the time, border officers take more time on checking my passport. Sometimes they go through all the pages, ask loads of questions and etc. These officers didn’t even look at my face for more than a second or two or they didn’t ask any questions whatsoever regarding to my travel plan or anything else. They stamped the passport and said: “Welcome to Turkey!”. They even answered my question regarding to which border I have to reach out to go to Gerogia and whether I need to leave the country a day before the 90 days visa or it’s alright if I leave on the last day.
Big smile on face, ready to collect my Backpack…disaster! My Deuter backpack was ripped off thanks to AirAstana! I asked an officer to help me reach to AirAstana or relative authorities to file a report regarding to my ripped off backpack!
My bad, I left the airport because I followed a wrong direction and when I got back, the information called for someone. A Turkish woman’s reaching to me. “Hello this is …, I’m sorry for what happened. Please, follow me.” Well, at least they’re polite, one of many things to dig to see when you enter a country. Long story, short they said even though I left the airport, they helped me file a report, and God they were polite.
Trying to catch the train from airport and I realise I don’t have small changes at all. I see some officer, dude they looked scary I tell you that. I ask some people and they seem like they don’t understand me, so I reach out to the officers and one of them ask me to follow her. She reach out to a small kiosk where they refused to give me small change first time I asked them, but then they changed a 50 lira note to smaller notes. I thank them all and get myself a card. Later on, I realised its not that cheap to travel around the town so, waste of time changing the money.
Next day, I arrive at my host’s house. Named Ali, a good looking lawyer in his mid 40. He invited me for dinner with his family, spent a great deal of time with them. Learnt so much about what’s really going on in Turkey from a well educated man. You then can realise what medias can do to a country, anyhow…not the main topic in here. They were absolutely lovely. Unfortunately, he had to go for a trip after my second day of stay, but he left me his keys!!! Unbelievable!! He left his house keys to a stranger from Couchsurfing. One of many things that you do not see at all.
The other days, walking in Bazzar, it’s enough if they catch your eyes direction on tea. You can’t get away from there without drinking at least 2 cups of tea. One guy even invited me and my wife for Baghlava. Hospitality, 10 out of 10. These stories can go on and on. I once catched a wrong ferry, and a girl on board guided me on how to deal with somehow Istanbul confusing ferries routes. And, she used her card for me to get pass through the gate when I wanted to go back to where I got on board the first time. Apparently, students get some sort of discount for public transportations. Interacting with polices, I reached one of Prince Islands and two police men gave me a ride to a campsite called madam Martha when they saw I was carrying a heavy bag. They didn’t even ask me to show them my passport or anything. Brilliant!
84 days of stay in Turkey. Istanbul, Bodrum, Antalya, Ankara, Samsun. Spent most of our -I and my wife- time with locals from different backgrounds, Turks, Syrian, and Kurds. They welcomed us to their houses, picked us up when we were pointing our fingers toward the road, and showed us the true face of Turkey and its people.
Sure, we had bad experiences too, but we mostly had good experiences. So, answering your question, I alone and many other people from Iran, at least those who seek for a deeper understanding of the people, and it’s culture, send our love to the people of Turkey. Thank you for the amazing time.
According to the QS World University Rankings (QS WUR) 2025 results, ITU rose 78 places and ranked 326th this year, achieving its best ranking to date. ITU, which ranks 1st in Türkiye in the “International Research Network” and “Sustainability” indicators, was also awarded the QS “Most Improved-Europe” Award for its outstanding achievements in the last 5 years.
ITU also ranked 112th among the 1503 universities listed in the “employer reputation” indicator, once again demonstrating the strong bond of its graduates and members with the industry. This achievement, which refers to ITU’s global recognition, was also in line with the theme of our university, which declared 2024 as the “Year of Global Impact”.
Originally Answered: Which country do you prefer, Turkey or Azerbaijan, as a an Armenian?
I find it amusing that this question is meant for Armenians and yet Turks and Azerbaijanis are answering it.
There is no choice really. Hundreds of Armenians travel in and out of Turkey every day (including from Armenia). Nearly no Armenians travel in and out of Azerbaijan. This “voting with feet” should answer the question.
The Republic of Turkey does not discriminate against Armenians entering and traveling the country. The Republic of Azerbaijan nearly universally denies all Armenians of the world entry. As a result, many Armenians (myself included) travel to Turkey and have fond associations and experiences there, where as such a thing is not possible with Azerbaijan.
Shut the doors that belong to another, never open them again,
destroy the servitude of one human to another
this call is ours.
To live free and solitary like a tree
and in fraternity like a forest
this yearning is ours.
Translation by Robin Turner, Former English lecturer at Bilkent University.
[The translation is my own – apologies for any inaccuracies. In particular, I couldn’t find a good translation for el kapıları – literally “the doors of strangers”. I also took some liberty in translating davet as “call” rather than the more common “invitation”, but I think it fits better.]
THE DATE COMMEMORATED BY ARMENIANS AS “GENOCIDE DAY”
April 24, which Armenians widely accept as the “date of genocide”, has nothing to do with the mandatory relocation and resettlement decision implemented against the Armenians. The decision to migrate a certain portion of the minority Ottoman Armenian population was taken later on May 27, 1915.
April 24, however, is the date of three important decisions that were made, on details of which I shall below elaborate.
1. April 24 is the date on which mutinous Armenian Committee centers were shut down.
During the First World War (WWI), while the Ottoman Empire was fighting its enemies on eight separate fronts, five of which being primary and three being secondary fronts, Armenians who were carried away by the empty promises of the imperialist states rebelled to establish an “independent Armenia” on the territories of the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottoman Armies were fighting their enemies on multiple fronts, they were also having to fight behind the front lines to suppress these Armenian rebellions. The suppression of these rebel and criminal elements necessitated the Ottoman Empire to divide and allocate its military forces in the face of the enemy to ensure public order. This situation created a very serious security vulnerability that weakened the military operations of the Ottoman (Turkish) Army.
Aiming to establish an “independent Armenia” by changing the demographic structure of the regions in which they rebelled, “revolutionary” Armenian factions formed into armed gangs and began perpetrating massacres in Turkish villages, which consisted only of women, children and elderly people as men capable of bearing arms were already drafted into the military. In addition to these massacres, Armenians made many other attempts to inflict real harm on the Ottoman Army.
Armenians who were under arms deserted their positions in the Ottoman Army along with their issued weapons, joined the ranks of the enemy armies, and entered Anatolia as defected vanguard units of the Russian Caucasian Armies. On the Iraqi and Palestinian fronts, 8,000 Armenians fought on the side of the British Army, against the Turkish Army. The Armenians that remained behind, spied for the enemy armies, and attacked the Turkish Army’s supply convoys. Armenian bakers poisoned Ottoman Soldiers by adding arsenic poison into the breads they baked.
Despite all warnings, mutinous Armenians continued to massacre innocent civilians and disrupt the military operations of the Ottoman Army. Hence, the Ottoman Empire made a decision to shut down the Armenian Committee Centers, confiscate their weapons and documents, and arrest the committee leaders on April 24, 1915. In this context, 226 Armenian committee leaders were arrested in Istanbul.
Thousands of cached weapons, munitions and bombs were seized during the searches conducted by the Ottoman authorities in the homes and workplaces of these 226 arrested committee leaders. 155 of the arrested committee leaders were sent to the City of Çankırı and 71 were sent to Ayaş District. However, not all of the arrested (persons) were put in prison. Those sent to Çankırı were interned in summer houses in groups of two or three and were allowed to roam freely in and around the city. They were only required to visit the police station once a day to prove that they did not leave the area.
Armenians named Mardiros (son of Arshak) and Arshak Diradoryan, who were being kept under supervised surveillance, stated to the Ottoman authorities that their financial situations deteriorated due to their prolonged internments and requested financial aid. Their requests for financial aid were accepted. 35 of the Armenians who were sent to Çankırı were later found innocent upon trials and were allowed to return to Istanbul. 3 of the 7 Armenian foreign committee leaders were deported and 31 Armenians were pardoned by the Ottoman State. Three of the committee leaders held in Ayaş District were later released due to the signing of Armistice of Mudros, and the remaining ones were released upon the occupation of Istanbul by the British occupation forces.
One of them, named Gomidas Vartabed, was interned in the City of Çankırı for a duration of only 13 days. He was later pardoned along with his 7 comrades, and all were allowed to return to Istanbul. Vartabed later came down with an illness in 1917 and went to Vienna to receive treatment. He later moved to France in 1919 and died in Paris, in 1935. A statue was later erected in Paris, in the name of Gomidas Vartabed, with the following phrase written underneath: “Turks massacred 1.5 million Armenians”. This alone should suffice to reveal the invalidity of the Armenian claims and the extent of history fraud they have been committing.
2. April 24 was the date on the morning of which enemy forces were to land in Gallipoli.
April 24 was also the date on the morning of which the British, French, Indian and ANZAC troops were to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula and report to their battle stations. As a matter of fact, Commander of the 19th Division, Staff Lieutenant Col. Mustafa Kemal, ordered his division to move to the coastal areas where the enemy was likely to land on the night of April 24, 1915.
Had the Armenian committee leaders in Istanbul not been arrested on April 24, internal uprisings would have been ignited inside the areas controlled by the Ottoman Military, especially in Istanbul, in synchronicity with the landing operations of the enemy troops which was to occur in the morning of April 25, 1915. This would essentially leave the Ottoman Army between crossfires and severely weaken the defense of Çanakkale. At the end of the war, the plan was that England, France, and Russia (aka the “Triple Entente”) would seize the Ottoman Capital, Istanbul, dismantle the Ottoman Empire and establish for Armenians a sovereign Armenian State. This is what was promised to the rebellious Ottoman Armenian political factions. However, when the leaders of the rebellion were arrested in a timely fashion on April 24, the plans of both the Armenians and the imperialist states that promised them sovereignty were averted. Armenians, whose hopes of establishing an “independent Armenia” were dashed forever with the arrest of the Committee leaders on April 24, 1915, cannot help but commemorating this day every year as if it were a day of national disaster even though this date has nothing to do with the mandatory relocation and resettlement decision.
As the rebel Armenians continued with their rebellions and massacres, even after the decision to arrest the committee leaders, the Ottoman Empire, in consultation with her ally, Germany, decided to forcibly migrate them on May 27, 1915. In this context, under the state’s self-defense doctrine, the Ottoman Empire decided that the mutinous Armenians who formed into gangs and massacred civilians would have to be removed from the regions they inhabited and be forcibly transferred to provinces such as Damascus and Mosul. This was no “mass deportation” as widely claimed by some historians though because these places were still Ottoman territories at the time but were far away from the war zone. However, not all Armenians in Anatolia were subjected to relocation, either. Those who were subjected to mandatory relocation were under such orders on a temporary basis only. They were later allowed to return to their places of residence once the orders of temporary relocation were lifted by the Ottoman Minister of Interior, Talat Pasha.
Before the onset of WWI, some of the Ottoman Armenians in Anatolia immigrated to other countries of their own accord, while some of them stated that they decided to change their religion and become “Muslims”, in order to elude the mandatory migration orders. 87% of the 438,758 Armenians who were relocated, safely reached their relocation destinations. The Armenian losses en route, during this period of mandatory relocation is 56,610 persons. This number, in fact, includes those who escaped from the convoys during relocation and returned home and those who died from various diseases. The number of Ottoman soldiers who died from epidemics in the same period was 466,759 persons. 9 times more Turks than the Armenian losses incurred during the mandatory relocation practice (518,105 persons) were directly killed by Armenian rebels, inside Anatolia. And 7 times more Turks (413,000 persons) were killed by Armenians in the Trans-Caucasia, as historians and researchers later found out.
3. April 24 is the date when a “Mandatory Migration Decision” was made for the Turks
The importance of April 24 date for the Turks, however, is based on reasons quite different. When the Russian Army crossed the Turkish border and began invading Eastern Anatolia, under the guidance of the Armenian vanguard units who deserted their positions in the Ottoman Army along with their issued weapons, thus effectively joining the Russian Army, Armenians residing in the region around the City of Van formed into gangs and began massacres in the City Center of Van (as well as surrounding districts and villages). Taking advantage of the fact that only the Gendarmerie Detachment remained in the City of Van upon the 33rd Infantry Division leaving the city to intercept the Russian Army, the Armenians burned down the Ottoman Bank, the Public Collections (“Duyunu Umumiye”) Building and the Post Office in Van on April 20, 1915, while setting ablaze all Muslim quarters of the city.
During this period, Armenians massacred 22,900 Muslims, within one month, in the Van Province alone. During the period in which Armenian gangs’ attacks on the Muslim civilians intensified, Van Governor Cevdet Bey tried to ensure the safety of the people who were stuck outside the Van Castle by allowing them to take refuge inside the castle. However, after the Armenian gangs attacked the Van Castle too, Governor Cevdet Bey sent a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on April 24, 1915, requesting that the Muslim residents of Van be allowed to migrate westwards so that they may be saved from the massacres of the Armenian gangs.
In other words, the date of April 24, over which the Armenians raise hell claiming that it is the “day of genocide”, is actually the date on which a very tough decision had to be made to migrate westward the civilian Muslim population of Van, consisting primarily of women, children and elderly, who sought refuge in the Van Castle so that they could escape the cruelest massacres of the armed Armenian gangs. After a permission was obtained to migrate the civilian Muslim population westward in Anatolia, 80,000 survivors of the Muslim population in Van had to leave their lands and migrate in utter panic and frenzy. Most of these Muslim civilians died on the road due to attacks by Armenian gangs, starvation, and disease. The number of Muslims massacred by Armenians in Van Province only, between 1914 and 1921 was 217,132 people. In each massacre case, the identities of the murderers and the victims are provided in detail in the Ottoman archival records. Ottoman Archives have two recorded volumes of documents totaling 1329 pages, that tell us in explicit details on what day, at what time and in what ways these heinous murders were committed.
The number of Turks who had to migrate to escape the Armenian massacres increased over time and reached to 1,604,038 persons. This number is more than 3.5 times the number of Armenians subjected to forced relocation (438,758 persons), and two-thirds of them (about 1,000,000 people) lost their lives en route. When this number is added to the number of 931,105, which is the number of Turks and other Muslims murdered by Armenians in the regions they inhabited, the number of Turks and other Muslims persons killed, reaches 2 million.
Comparison of the Migration Conditions of Turks and Armenians
The Ottoman Empire provided all possible assistance to the migrating Armenians before, during and after the relocation practice was undertaken. Before the relocation, the property and land left behind by the displaced Armenians were recorded and taken into the protective custody of the State. Perishable goods were sold at local auctions by committees and the proceeds were transferred into protected state accounts on behalf of the owners. Information such as the type, quantity, value of the goods sold, and to whom they were sold were recorded in special books and upon being approved by the committee, reports were kept in two original copies. One copy was provided to the Government and one official copy was provided to the “Abandoned Properties Commission”. 98% of the properties, money and real estate taken into State custody were returned to the Armenian returnees after the end of WWI.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has taken measures to ensure that the Armenians subjected to mandatory relocation reached their destinations safely. Before commencing the mandatory relocation practice, the Ottoman Government wrote letters to all local provinces, instructing them to take the necessary precautions and stock up on food to meet all the needs of the migrant convoys that would pass through their regions. For this purpose, a budget of 2,250,000 Ottoman Kurush (currency) was allocated to the local sanjaks and provinces. This figure corresponds to nearly 74 billion Turkish Liras in today’s currency.
The Ottoman Empire provided train tickets to the Armenians who were subjected to mandatory relocation, gave an ox cart to each family in places where there was no railway, established food centers in Nusaybin, Rasulayn, Tel-Ermen and Kirkil for the migrant convoys and provided hot meals for them, under wartime conditions where the Ottoman soldiers were fighting on empty stomachs in the Battle of Çanakkale. Ottoman Government even built hospitals to treat sick Armenians. In addition, the elders among the displaced Armenians were paid an allowance of 3 Kurush per day, and their children were paid an allowance of 60 para (currency) per day.
Dispatching of Armenian migrants were halted temporarily after November 25, 1915, due to winter conditions, and permanently on February 21, 1916.
The Ottoman State provided relocated Armenians with deeded houses, arable lands and seeds, tools and capital with which they could practice of their professions in their new places of residence. In addition, the debts of Armenian persons (subjected to mandatory relocation) to the State and private individuals were either frozen or wiped off completely. Also, all criminal proceedings against criminals and suspects of Armenian origin were postponed.
After the end of WWI, the Ottoman Government issued a decree on January 4, 1919, allowing Armenians who were subjected to mandatory relocation to return to their former places of residence. Instructions were telegraphed to the relevant local authorities to ensure the safe transfer of Armenians who wanted to return to their former places of residence and the necessary security precautions were duly taken.
However, Turks, who ended up having to leave their lands and migrate in order to save their lives by escaping Armenian oppression, could not benefit from any of the above-mentioned privileges afforded to Armenian migrants. They had to migrate by their own means. And while migrating, two thirds of the 1,604,031 Turkish migrants lost their lives due to reasons such as attacks by Armenian gangs, starvation, disease and freezing to death.
As the child of a family from Van who left their ancestral lands behind and migrated westward to escape the Armenian massacres, one who lost many martyrs out of his family during this ordeal, I wrote this article to sincerely provide the above facts little known to the Turkish public and the world public at large. I hope that this article, which is based entirely on documented facts, will contribute to exposing the “Armenian genocide” lies and understanding of the real historical facts. And I surely hope that those who unjustly accuse us, Turks, of genocide will at least blush after reading this article, if they have even an ounce of shame left in them.
Assoc Prof. Dr. Ömer Lütfi Taşcıoğlu (Ret. Staff Col., Turkish Armed Forces)
On 24th April each year Yerevan issues its standard message commemorating the “Armenian Genocide” of 1915. This is usually a matter of routine. But not this year. The statement issued by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has led to him being called a “denialist” by the Armenian diaspora and the Genocide industry in the US and elsewhere in the West.
Here are the relevant parts of Pashinyan’s statement that have attracted the ire of those with a stake in the Genocide accusation:
“Dear people, dear citizens of the Republic of Armenia,
Today we commemorate the memory of 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide, the Meds Yeghern, who were put to the sword in the Ottoman Empire since 1915 for being Armenians.
This large-scale tragedy took place during the years of the World War I, and the Armenian people, who had no statehood at the time, having lost their statehood centuries ago, had essentially forgotten the tradition of statehood, and became victims of geopolitical intrigues and false promises, lacking first of all a political mind capable of making the world and its rules understandable.
Meds Yeghern became a nationwide tragedy and grief for us, and without exaggeration, is now a predetermining factor for our socio-psychology. Even today, we perceive the world, our environment, ourselves under the dominant influence of the mental trauma of the Meds Yeghern, and we have not been able to overcome that trauma.
This means that… we often relate and compete with other countries and the international community in a state of mental trauma, and for this reason, sometimes we cannot correctly distinguish the realities and factors, historical processes and projected horizons confronting us.
Maybe this is also the reason why we receive new shocks, and relive the trauma of the Armenian Genocide as both a legacy and as a tradition… When talking about the Armenian Genocide, the Meds Yeghern, we always talk to the outside world, but our internal conversation never takes place on this event.
What should we do and what should we not do in order to overcome the trauma of genocide and exclude it as a threat? These are questions that should be the key subject of discussion in our political and philosophical thinking, but this kind of point of view of dealing with the fact of the Meds Yeghern is not common among us.
This is an imperative, an urgent imperative, and we must evaluate the relations between the Meds Yeghern and the First Republic of Armenia, we must relate the perception of the Meds Yeghern with the vital interests of the Republic of Armenia, our national statehood…
We must now stop the searches for a “national homeland” because we have already found that homeland, our Promised Land, where milk and honey flow. For us, the commemoration of the martyrs of the Meds Yeghern should not symbolize the “lost homeland”, but the found and real homeland, in the person of the Republic of Armenia, whose state… policies can prevent a repetition.
Never again! We should not say this to others, but to ourselves. And this is not an accusation against us at all, but a point of view where we, and only we, are responsible for the directing of our destiny and we are obliged to have enough mind, will, and depth of knowledge to carry through that responsibility in the domain of our sovereign decisions and perceptions.
May the martyrs of Meds Yeghern and all our other martyrs be consoled in their permanent sleep by the Republic of Armenia.
And long live the Republic of Armenia.”
It has been noticed that in his statement of April 24th, 2024, the Armenian Prime Minister chose to continually refer to the event the diaspora has been promoting for the last 50 years as “the Armenian Genocide” as Meds Yeghern or “the Great Crime”. He used the Genocide term extremely sparingly, almost in derogatory fashion against its diasporan promoters. Meds Yeghern is the term that Armenians used until the 1940’s to describe the events of 1915 before the term Genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin and applied by the Armenian diaspora in its campaign for reparations against the Turkish state since the 1970s. Since then, there has been an insistence that the proper and legal term that should be used is “Genocide” or Tseghasbanoutyoun, in Armenian.
What Pashinyan seems to be suggesting is that Armenia should stop its myth-making and deal with the realities of situations as they present themselves. In other words it should stop treating propaganda as fact because propaganda is a poor basis for policy and Armenia’s recent disasters are very much connected with this tendency. In line with this he has suggested, in line with Azerbaijan President Aliyev’s demand, that Armenia adopt a new constitution deleting the references to “Artsakh” and “the Armenian Genocide”.
One of Pashinyan’s top lieutenants’ has also made the suggestion of making a list of all “1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide”. This has been seen by the Armenian diaspora as an indirect way of questioning the veracity of the “Armenian Genocide” and part of a policy of appeasment toward Azerbaijan and Turkiye.
The Lemkin Institute, horrified that its raison d’etre has been questioned by the Armenian Prime Minister, no less, issued a very lengthy and detailed statement saying:
“While we do not generally involve ourselves in domestic affairs of states unless there is an internal threat of genocide, we must address concerns stemming from recent statements made by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that appear to diverge from fundamental principles of genocide prevention, genocide recognition, and transitional justice, and that directly relate to issues of Armenian national security.”
The Lemkin Institute statement then seeks to refute Pashinyan’s own statement published on April 24th:
“Perhaps most striking about Pashinyan’s statement on the genocide was the absence of any mention of aggressors. In paragraph three, for example, Pashinyan — discussing the period in the Ottoman Empire leading up to the 1915 genocide — cryptically asserted that “…the Armenian people, who had no statehood, had lost their statehood centuries ago, and essentially had forgotten the tradition of statehood, became victims of geopolitical intrigues and false promises, lacking first of all a political mind capable of making the world and its rules understandable.” This statement seems to assert that Armenians mysteriously experienced genocide due to their own witlessness. By asserting that Armenians were solely “victims of geopolitical intrigues and false promises,” Pashinyan further disregards the long-term and multi-layered historical oppression of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as well as the deep and visceral contempt for Armenians among members of the Committee of Union and Progress, the ruling party during the genocide. In other words, Pashinyan’s statement fails to recognize the role played by the ethnic, religious, and cultural animosity for Armenians in the Turkic supremacist campaign of extermination that targeted Armenians during World War I.
Furthermore, instead of attributing blame for the genocide to the leaders of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Pashinyan redirects attention towards Armenians, and specifically their apparent incapacity to understand politics at the time. He appears to be referencing the actions of the Russian Empire and Western powers during that era, who promised to protect Armenians but did not follow through, which aggravated the Ottoman leaders’ sense of external threat to the empire and drew negative attention to the Armenians as ‘foreign agents’. However, he does not state this outright; instead he seems to believe that Armenians brought the genocide upon themselves by misunderstanding the political terrain. Pashinyan’s talking points in this passage seem ironic, given that he has himself embraced Western offers to save Armenia from its hostile neighbors. Yet, his talking points also echo the official position of Türkiye regarding the Armenian Genocide which justified it by contracting “against an onslaught of external invaders and internal nationalist independence movements”. By parroting the Turkish narrative of the events of 1915-1923, the Armenian Prime Minister risks absolving Türkiye of its responsibility for the Armenian Genocide, downplaying all previous acknowledgment efforts. Further, it may substantially hamper the continuing work on international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and Turkish accountability – something that the worldwide Armenian diaspora, as well as genocide scholars and activists, have been fighting for.
Pashinyan’s argument that “Armenian people, who had no statehood, had lost their statehood centuries ago, and essentially had forgotten the tradition of statehood” inexplicably plays into the denialist agenda of Türkiye and Azerbaijan by obliquely mischaracterizing Armenian efforts to gain equal rights and human security in the Ottoman empire with foolish attempts to exercise a quest for independent statehood for which they had no capacity. The vast majority of Armenians under Ottoman rule were not seeking secession, but rather security and justice. Pashinyan’s words directly echo the official Turkish view of the Armenian people as rebellious “traitors” who collaborated with hostile European powers to bring about the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, and who therefore betrayed the country. In fact, in this passage, Pashinyan seems to be making the case that Armenians can only avoid future genocides by capitulating to present-day Türkiye’s expansionist designs.”
It must be admitted that the Armenian Prime Minister has a better understanding of Armenian history than the propagandists in the Genocide industry.
Just after the Great War of August 1914 began in Europe a delegation of Young Turks attended the 8th Dashnak Congress held at Erzurum, in Ottoman eastern Anatolia. There they made an offer to the Armenians to secure their loyalty in the event of the War coming to the Ottoman territories – so as to preserve stability in the territories in which the Armenians lived.
That the Ottomans should have hosted the Dashnak Congress as the Great War was beginning reveals something about the good intentions of the Committee of Union and Progress (New/Young Turks). For most of the previous decade the Dashnaks had sat in the Ottoman parliament, Armenians had been Ottoman ministers and there had been genuine attempts at reform, which were to be supervised by International inspectors, in the eastern vilayets where the Armenians mostly lived.
At this Congress the Ottomans offered the Dashnaks the thing they had been struggling for over the previous 30 years – autonomy.
The Ottoman Government sent a delegation of 28 CUP members, representing all the ethnic groups of the Empire, including important individuals like Behaeddin Shakir and Naji Bey, to make an offer to the Armenians – who were observed to be moving toward supporting a Russian assault on the Empire.
There is a detailed account of the offer made to the Dashnaks at their Congress in Erzurum in a book written by Morgan Philips Price, a pro-Armenian British Liberal, who later became a Labour M.P. He acted for C.P. Scott as The Manchester Guardian’s Caucasus correspondent during the Great War:
“At the outbreak of the European war the Committee of Union and Progress became all-powerful, and all reform schemes and reconciliation plans fell to the ground. The Armenian party, “Dashnaktsution”, happened to be holding a conference at Erzerum when the war began. Turkey had not yet entered; but at the beginning of August Hilmi Bey, Behadin Shekir Bey, and Nedji Bey were delegated by the Committee to make certain proposals to the Armenians in the event of war with Russia. These delegates arrived at Erzerum at the end of the month, and their first proposal was that the Armenians should observe complete neutrality, the population of Armenia and the Trans-Caucasus doing its military duty, to whatever Empire it owed allegiance.
This the Armenians accepted, and all seemed to point to an agreement. But a few days later the Turks suddenly made another proposal. Turkey, they said, could never be secure until there was a chain of buffer States between her and her arch-enemy, Russia, and they claimed that, if war broke out, the Armenians should assist them in carrying out their plan. They then produced a map of the Middle East in which the following political divisions were made. Russia was to be pushed back to the Cossack steppes beyond the main range of the Caucasus. Tiflis and the Black Sea coast, with Batum and Kutais, were marked as belonging to an autonomous province of Georgia. The central part of the Trans-Caucasus, with Kars, Alexandropol and Erivan, were to be joined to the vilayets of Van, Bitlis, and East Erzerum, as an autonomous Armenia. Eastern Trans-Caucasia, including Baku, Elizabetopol and Dagestan were to become an autonomous province of Shiite Tartars. The Armenians, feeling the impossibility of the Ottoman Empire ever being able to realize such a grandiose scheme… refused to have anything to do with the proposal. So the Young Turk delegates, unable to make any impression in Erzerum, proceeded to Van, where they met with no greater success.
According to statements made to me during 1915 by prominent Van Armenians, it is clear that the action of the Tiflis Dashnakists, about which the Committee of Union and Progress had doubtless been informed by the end of August, was the principal cause of these Turkish demands. Early in August 1914 the Tiflis Armenians seem to have decided that a Russo-Turkish war was inevitable, and thereupon the Dashnakist leaders there at once offered 25,000 volunteers to assist the Russians in conquering the Armenian vilayets.
This offer was made before the outbreak of the war with Turkey, and in the interval the volunteers were busy training and forming at the various centres in the Caucasus. At the end of October, when Turkey came into the war, preparations had been so far advanced that Andranik, the famous revolutionary leader from Turkey, at the head of the first volunteer battalion, took part with the Russians in the advance through North-west Persia, capturing Serai early in November. Meanwhile five more battalions had been formed and were ready to leave for the front, as soon as they could get rifles and equipment. Fifty per cent, of these volunteers were Armenians who had left Turkey, Bulgaria and Roumania since the outbreak of the European war, and had come to the Caucasus to offer their services.
There can be little doubt that this volunteer movement, started under the auspices of the Caucasus Armenians, was the cause of the Young Turk demands on the Armenians of Erzerum, Van and Bitlis for a similar volunteer movement against Russia, and of the subsequent persecution when this demand was refused. Prominent Armenians, whom I met in Van, told me how the attitude of Djevdet Pasha towards them and their people became much more unfriendly as soon as the news arrived that Armenian volunteers were on the front fighting against the Turks. He at once demanded the return of a number of Armenian deserters, whose absence had hitherto been winked at. He accused them of going over to the volunteers with the Russians, and commenced the policy of forcing the Armenians into special labour battalions, where they had very hard work and bad food. Thus the Van Armenians were at the mercy of the Turks, who avenged on them all the rash acts of their kinsmen in the Caucasus.
That their conduct was keenly resented by the Turkish Armenian refugees in the Caucasus, was made clear by some articles in the Van Tosp, the organ of the Van Armenians in Tin as early in 1916. In its issue for January 9th, 1916, Professor Minassian took the Dashnaktsution party to task for having entered into negotiations with the Russian authorities without consulting its kindred societies in Turkish Armenia. It had spread, he said, baseless rumours of a Russian promise of autonomy for Armenia, and then had proceeded to organize volunteer battalions, regardless of the effect that this would have on their kinsmen in Turkey, whose position under the nose of the Turks was very precarious and required tactful handling. He denied that there was any serious negotiation with the Russian Government about Armenian autonomy, and said that the Dashnaktsution leaders of the Caucasus were pretending to represent responsible opinion, whereas they really only represented a group. The Orizon, the organ of the Dashnaktsution in Tiflis, defended itself by saying that the massacre would have happened in any case, and that Prince Vorontsoff Dashkoff had not only verbally promised Armenian autonomy in return for the service of the volunteers, but had actually signed a document to this effect. Whether this document ever existed is however exceedingly doubtful.” (War and Revolution in Asiatic Russia, pp.243-6)
The Armenians turned the Ottoman offer down and instead joined the Tsarist invasion and mounted an insurrection against the Ottoman state. That proved to be a fateful effor with the most tragic of results.
The CUP mission offered the Armenians autonomy in 2 and a half vilayets of East Erzurum, Van and Bitlis plus “Russian Armenia” in return for service in the Ottoman army in the event of war and support from their brethren in Russian territory, who would then, in the event of victory, be part of the larger autonomous region. The offer would be guaranteed by the German Government. The CUP delegation proposed that the Dashnaks aid the Ottoman State by mounting attacks on any Russian invasion behind the lines in Transcaucasia, where an autonomous Armenian state could be founded.
In the 2 and a half vilayets of Turkish Armenia this would have placed around 1 million Muslims under the authority of an autonomous Armenia containing only around 400,000 Armenians. So it was undoubtedly a generous concession on the Ottoman side (see Justin McCarthy, Turks and Armenians: Nationalism and Conflict in the Ottoman Empire, p.10) According to the 1897 Tsarist figures the Armenian population of the autonomous area would have been increased by another 1 million from the Kars, Erivan and Alexandropol Russian guberniyas (although this area would have also contained a sizeable amount of Muslims. By 1917 the Russians counted 1.4 million Christians in Russian Armenia and 670,000 Moslems).
So, an Armenian autonomous region, with “Russian Armenia” included, under Ottoman sovereignty would have perhaps been made viable by a small majority of Armenians – something that all the Armenian territorial claims were incapable of delivering without the extensive ethnic cleansing of Muslims.
This was the concrete realisation, to all intents and purposes, of the deal the Dashnaks had concluded with the Young Turks in 1907. It was more realistic and realisable than the choice the Dashnaks subsequently took in throwing in their lot with Russian expansionism and British Imperialism.
It could be said that the Dashnaks backed the wrong horse, believing it to be the more powerful one, more likely to win. They were taken in by the promises and propaganda of the Triple Entente – Britain, France and Russia – and paid an awful price for it.
Prime Minister Pashinyan, therefore, has a point. Armenians should grasp this historic opportunity to forget altogether about the myths around “Greater Armenia” and instead concentrate all efforts in improving the lives of Armenians living in the actual Armenia. The ideology of “Greater Armenia” and the “Armenian Genocide” combined, at the collapse of the USSR, to impel Armenia to seize a large portion of Azerbaijan where there was a sizeable Armenian population and which Armenian history had taught was a part of “historic Armenia”. In the course of this conquest there were fearsome massacres of Azerbaijani civilians and over 750,000 were driven from their homes to become internally displaced persons in other parts of Azerbaijan. And the US diaspora volunteeers, led by Monte Melkonian, conducted the notorious Khojaly massacre.
The seizure of Karabakh and the surrounding regions and ethnic cleansing of its population was justified not only on irredentist grounds but with reference to the events of 1915. Azerbaijani Turks could not be allowed to live in Karabakh because these “Turks” were, after all the same Turks as 1915!
The “Armenian Genocide” narrative also chained Armenia to its Russian “protector” after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Armenia was in need of a “protector” after what it did in Karabakh in the early 1990s and Moscow was indeed happy to oblige. This had a consequent retarding effect on Armenia’s post-Soviet national independence and development when the route to the West went through Turkiye. Pashinyan is very aware of this.
One of the first acts of the current US President upon coming to power was to recognise the “Armenian Genocide.” And now that same “caller out” of genocides is the essential facilitator of the clearest case of attempted genocide seen in modern times.
Perhaps that is concentrating the mind of the Armenian Prime Minister and making him into something of a statesman.
