Category: Harut Sassounian

Harut Sassounian is the Publisher of The California Courier, founded in 1958. His weekly editorials, translated into several languages, are reprinted in scores of U.S. and overseas publications and posted on countless websites.<p>

He is the author of “The Armenian Genocide: The World Speaks Out, 1915-2005, Documents and Declarations.”

As President of the Armenia Artsakh Fund, he has administered the procurement and delivery of $970 million of humanitarian assistance to Armenia and Artsakh during the past 34 years. As Senior Vice President of Kirk Kerkorian’s Lincy Foundation, he oversaw $240 million of infrastructure projects in Armenia.

From 1978 to 1982, Mr. Sassounian worked as an international marketing executive for Procter & Gamble in Geneva, Switzerland. He was a human rights delegate at the United Nations for 10 years. He played a leading role in the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1985.

Mr. Sassounian has a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Business Administration from Pepperdine University.

Pres. Trump Succumbs to Turkish Pressures By not Recognizing the Armenian Genocide

Armenians and Turks around the world wait with bated breath each year to see if the President of the United States would use in his annual April 24 statement the word Genocide to describe the mass killings of Armenians.

Armenians and Turks seem to forget that the United States has not only recognized the Armenian Genocide, but has done so repeatedly at the highest levels: The House of Representatives recognized the Armenian Genocide twice in 1975 and 1984. So did President Reagan in his Presidential Proclamation 4838, issued on April 22, 1981. Most importantly, the United States Government officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in a report filed with the International Court of Justice (World Court) in 1951.

Therefore, after all this recognition, as I have repeatedly stated in my columns, Armenians no longer need additional acknowledgments by the President of the United States or the U.S. Congress.

This year, many were curious if Pres. Trump would issue a statement at all on April 24 and whether he will use the term Armenian Genocide. After 84 members of Congress wrote a joint letter to Pres. Trump and private individuals like Mike Sarian of California contacted high level Trump administration officials urging the President to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, the White House issued a statement on April 24, declining to call it genocide.

The good news is that, given Pres. Trump’s lack of familiarity with Armenian issues, and not having made any campaign promises to the Armenian community, the Trump administration did not completely ignore the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and marked this special day with a statement, as was done by several previous presidents. Pres. Trump’s statement mentions the basic facts of the Genocide, describing the Armenian mass killings as “one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.”

While Armenians are disappointed that Pres. Trump shied away from using the term Armenian Genocide, the Turks have no reason to celebrate. On the contrary, they should be ashamed that the President of the United States is accusing their ancestors of committing “one of the worst atrocities of the 20^th century” and refers to the killings of 1.5 million Armenians, which the Turkish government denies to this day!

The bad news, however, is that Pres. Trump issued a statement that does not acknowledge the Armenian Genocide as a genocide. Pres. Trump’s aides have simply copied the texts issued for eight years by Pres. Obama and before him by Presidents Bush and Clinton, including the reference to the Armenian term “Meds Yeghern,” which is not understood by anyone except Armenians, and does not have the legal meaning under international law of the term genocide or ‘tseghasbanoutyoun’ in Armenian. The use of “Meds Yeghern” is simply a clever ploy to avoid the word Genocide. In the past, I have taken the position that if a President cannot acknowledge the Genocide, he should not insult the memory of the Armenian victims and the intelligence of Armenian-Americans by referring to it as ‘tragedy’ and ‘atrocities.’ When Sean Spicer, Trump’s spokesman was asked about the White House’s omission of the term genocide from its April 24 statement, he cynically replied: “it is perfectly in keeping with the language that’s been used over and over again [by previous Presidents].” It is shocking that a Pres. Trump, who takes such pride in speaking out his mind and strongly criticizes the shortcomings of previous presidents, is all of a sudden proud to follow their unacceptable censorship of the Armenian Genocide! Pres. Trump angered a lot of people around the world when he called Pres. Erdogan after the referendum earlier this month and congratulating him on a tainted election that gave Erdogan dictatorial powers! Pres. Trump is scheduled to welcome Pres. Erdogan to the White House in May!

I fully agree with the reactions of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) and the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) to Pres. Trump’s statement. The ANCA stated: “President Trump has chosen to enforce Ankara’s gag-rule against American condemnation and commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. In failing to properly mark April 24th, President Trump is effectively outsourcing U.S. genocide-prevention policy to Recep Erdogan, an arrogant and authoritarian dictator who clearly enjoys the public spectacle of arm-twisting American presidents into silence on Turkey’s mass murder of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other Christians.” The AAA stated: “the President’s statement fails to stand up for human rights and is inconsistent with American values, and represents the same kind of capitulation to Turkish authoritarianism which will cost more lives.”

Cong. Adam Schiff (Dem.-CA), a long-time supporter of the Armenian community, also issued a statement condemning Pres. Trump’s lack of use of the term Armenian Genocide: “Today, we received another disappointing statement from yet another President, refusing to acknowledge the murder of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923 for what it was — a genocide. President Trump now joins a long line of both Republican and Democratic Presidents unwilling to confront Turkey, and by refusing to do so, he has made the United States once again a party to its campaign of denial. How can we speak with the moral clarity we must about the genocidal campaign by ISIS against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq, if we are unwilling to condemn the first genocide of the last century? If the President will not speak out, the Congress must, and I join my colleagues — Democrats and Republicans — in calling on the House to take up the Armenian Genocide resolution.”

With all due respect to Cong. Schiff, the Armenian-American community does not need one more House resolution on the Armenian Genocide, on the top of the two resolutions already adopted in 1975 and 1984. What Armenians around the world demand is justice — compensation for their enormous losses, return of their confiscated private and communal properties, and liberation of the occupied Armenian territories. This is what a future House resolution must demand, not more genocide recognition.

Finally, I am very pleased that WikiLeaks tweeted on April 24 to its 4.6 million followers one of my previous columns on Hillary Clinton rejecting the suggestion of her top campaign aides to issue a statement on the Armenian Genocide before last year’s presidential elections.

April 25, 2017
Trump’s Attack on Syria: Wrong for so Many Reasons

Many Americans and people around the world followed with great concern the off-the-cuff and zany ideas Donald Trump voiced during the presidential campaign and more ominously after becoming President.

It is one thing to disagree with him on a domestic policy issue like banning Muslim tourists or healthcare or building a wall, it is quite another when he issues threats to foreign countries such as Iran and North Korea, and even worse when he orders a missile attack on Syria!

What is wrong with such a disastrous decision? Pres. Trump does not have the requisite background knowledge about the Syrian conflict, except for what he has read in some fringe publications and seen on his favorite TV Channel, FOX News.

Pres. Trump stated that he was deeply touched by the images of babies he had seen on TV who had been hurt by a chemical attack. Who would not be? Certainly, he had an emotional and impulsive reaction to heart-wrenching pictures, which cannot be a substitute for a well-thought out foreign policy without a thorough examination of the facts of this tragic incident and careful consideration of the consequences of an extreme action like launching 59 tomahawk missiles on a Syrian air base.

Fortunately, Pres. Trump’s aides alerted Russia shortly before the attack, to avoid any Russian casualties which could have had catastrophic consequences for the entire world!

Furthermore, Pres. Trump’s actions violated the U.S. Constitution, as he neither sought nor received the legally required authorization from the U.S. Congress to launch a war on another sovereign state.

Pres. Trump had neither the wisdom nor the patience to wait for the outcome of the investigation of the circumstances of the chemical attack — to verify who is truly responsible for this terrible attack.

The Trump Administration accused the Syrian Air Force of carrying out a chemical attack near Idlib. The Syrian and Russian governments have a different version of these events. They affirm that Syria does not possess any chemical weapons after its 2003 agreement to dispose of all such hazardous materials. Furthermore, Syria claims that the chemical explosion was caused by its Air Force bombing a warehouse belonging to Syrian terrorists who had stored these dangerous materials. It makes no sense for Pres. Assad to use chemical weapons while he is winning, risk antagonizing the West, and precipitating a military backlash.

We recall that back in 2013, there was another chemical attack on a Damascus suburb that killed many more people than the one near Idlib. Back then, Pres. Obama was close to going to war with Syria wrongly believing that the Syrian government had crossed his announced “red line.” However, when he learned that the chemical attack near Damascus was a “false flag,” meaning that it was orchestrated by Turkey and its terrorist allies to force the United States to intervene militarily in Syria, Pres. Obama did not go through with his plans to launch missiles on Syria. No one should forget that U.S. officials in 2003 presented fake “intelligence” evidence to the world claiming that Pres. Saddam Hussein possessed WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction), to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Ironically, many Republican members of Congress who are now applauding Pres. Trump for his decision to attack Syria, back then were the most vocal critics of Pres. Obama for planning a similar attack. Furthermore, even though the 2013 chemical attack killed many more people and babies, Donald Trump issued 40 tweets urging Pres. Obama not to attack Syria. Trump did not seem to care about “beautiful little Syrian babies” back then, as he is claiming now!

Both the White House and many self-declared pundits in the American media, who have made up the most outrageous lies about Syria in the last six years, are now claiming that eliminating the use of chemical weapons in Syria is in the U.S. national interest. They also affirm that the chemical weapons are banned by international treaty and their use is a violation of international law.

While acknowledging the truth of these statements, one has to ask:

1) Why no investigation was carried out of the chemical attack, prior to the U.S. Missile launch?

2) Under what right Pres. Trump has appointed himself the arbiter of international law and policeman of the world? International law, by definition, is an issue touching all countries, not just the United States. The proper venue to investigate, condemn and punish such violations of international law is the United Nations Security Council, not the White House. Furthermore, attacking a sovereign nation is itself a violation of international law!

3) By attacking Syria and destroying its military planes, Pres. Trump has in fact emboldened and strengthened the ISIS terrorists to continue and expand their criminal acts in Syria and around the world, particularly when they see that each time they use chemical weapons, the West accuses Pres. Assad for it and attacks Syria. Furthermore, by weakening and replacing Pres. Assad, Pres. Trump risks causing chaos and terrorism similar to Iraq and Libya, leading to many more deaths! Who will replace Pres. Assad and what guarantees are there that his replacement will not be ISIS, resulting in not just 80 deaths as in the recent chemical attack, but additional million casualties on the top of the half a million deaths in the Syrian conflict in recent years? The last thing the Syrian people need is more attacks and more bloodshed. What they need is painstaking diplomatic effort to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

All those in the U.S. and around the world who were concerned that Pres. Trump would make reckless decisions and endanger international peace, have regrettably witnessed the first such incident within the first 100 days of his Presidency. Everyone now fears that more such saber-rattling and unwarranted destabilizing attacks will take place in the coming weeks and months in other parts of the world. One hopes that Pres. Trump did not initiate the attack on Syria simply to distract attention away from many of his domestic problems, as he has done repeatedly on other issues in recent weeks!

Finally, what happened to Pres. Trump’s repeated brash statements about “America First,” and “I am the President of the United States, not the President of the world”?

April 10, 2017
Pro-Azeri and Pro-Turkish Writers Denigrate Armenia and Diaspora

Turkish and Azeri circles were displeased with my latest column where I had analyzed Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s phone call to Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan.

Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency published a ridiculous article by Elmira Tariverdiyeva, titled: “Yerevan’s failed phone call or why Trump did not respond.” She is the head of Trend’s Russian-language news service.

The Azeri article is replete with nonsensical and false assertions. The author, who has a limited knowledge of American politics, calls the Pence-Sargsyan phone calls a “disaster.” She wrongly claims that Pence simply returned Sargsyan’s phone call. In fact, it was Vice President-elect Pence who made the call to Pres. Sargsyan.

The real disaster is that the President of filthy rich Azerbaijan, Aliyev, would have been unable to talk to Pres.-elect Trump or Vice President-elect Pence without the assistance of highly-paid lobbyists in Washington!

The Azeri journalist goes on to make bigger gaffes by claiming that Hillary Clinton’s defeat “was a big disappointment for Yerevan. It is known that Clinton maintained fairly close relationships with an extensive Armenian diaspora in the US.” Elmira does not seem to know much about either Armenia or the Diaspora. Contrary to her false assertion, most Armenians did not support Clinton!

Tariverdiyeva also claims that Yerevan is frustrated because Trump is more familiar with Azerbaijan based on his investments in that country. In my opinion, it is too premature to make such self-serving and unwarranted assumptions. On the contrary, Pres. Trump has many reasons to be tough on Azerbaijan given its dictatorial regime, serious violations of human rights, and the participation of many Azeris in ranks of ISIS terrorists in Syria. It is ridiculous to claim that Pres. Trump would be more favorably inclined toward Azerbaijan because of his $323,150 licensing fee from the Baku Trump Tower, which he does not own!

Another more sinister article was written by Alexander Murinson, who is neither Azeri nor Turk, but for some questionable reason, has written a series of anti-Armenian tirades over the years in various publications. In his LinkedIn page, Murinson describes himself as: “Currently seeking new [job] opportunities…. An expert on Azerbaijan-Turkish-Israeli cooperation…. Considered a leading expert on Azerbaijani Jewry.” Murinson serves on the faculty of an obscure school in Washington, D.C., “BAU (Bahcheshehir) International University,” recently founded by Turkish billionaire Enver Yucel.

In an attempt to seek new job opportunities and ensure that his article titled, “The Armenian Lobby’s Tenuous Relations with President-elect Trump,” is published, Murinson panders to the right-wing website The American Spectator, under the false premise that Armenians are anti-Trump, therefore, anti-conservative.

I had planned to rebut point by point Murinson’s statements, but decided to let his own words expose his faulty judgments. Here are some of his nonsensical gems:

— American “Armenian lobby’s agenda is largely contrary to U.S. national interests and, perhaps counter-intuitively, to the best interests of the Republic of Armenia….”

— “Turkey [is] a key and indispensable strategic ally of the U.S. in the Middle East….”

— “This may lay at the core of the deep concern and disappointment of the U.S. Armenian lobby with the election of Donald Trump as President. For observers of the region, the nasty anti-Trump campaign executed by Armenian-American activists is no secret. The online campaign proudly announced that Armenian pop stars Cher and Kim Kardashian are ‘pulling all stops’ against Trump, while a noted pro-Armenian celebrity Amal Clooney, whose odd list of clients once included Armenia’s government and Julian Assange, led the anti-Trump effort along with her husband George.”

— “The Armenian concern seems to stem from the fact that Donald Trump is not beholden to Washington’s typical web of special interest groups. He might pursue a more clear-eyed approach to the region, basing it on America’s national interest rather than the interests of a particular lobby. He might even take a sober look at the oversold notion of Armenian political influence in the U.S. and notice its increasingly obvious irrelevance.”

— “The next Secretary of State should be different from the once pro-Armenian Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who favored his Armenian friends….”

In view of such persistent attacks, Armenian-American political organizations should forcefully counter all deceitful and defamatory articles written by the likes of Elmira Tariverdiyeva and Alexander Murinson. It is high time to establish an Armenian Anti-Defamation Committee!

December 13, 2016
A Dictator Obsessed With Power & Wealth: Erdogan’s 12 Scandals!

With each passing day, Turkish President Erdogan is becoming increasingly dictatorial. The arrest of 11 members of the opposition pro-Kurdish party, HDP, is the latest in a long string of Erdogan’s dictatorial policies.

Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote a devastating exposé on Erdogan last week, listing some of his scandalous actions!

I have summarized Rubin’s lengthy article which was posted on Newsweek magazine’s European edition website, under the title, “Twelve Questions Turkish Journalists Dare not Ask”:

1. How did Erdogan become a billionaire?

Erdogan was raised in a poor family until he became Mayor of Istanbul when he faced 13 corruption probes. In 2004, when he was Prime Minister, the U.S. embassy in Ankara reported in a cable to Washington that “he had at least eight Swiss bank accounts.” In addition, secret phone recordings revealed his instructions “toliquidate perhaps a billion dollars in cash. Erdogan used his power over the courts to quash the case and arrest prosecutors and judges who sought to pursue it.”

2. Where is Erdogan’s university diploma?

Erdogan claims to have graduated from Istanbul’s Marmara University in 1981. His degree may have been forged. “A four-year degree is a prerequisite for the presidency. If Erdogan lied about having a degree, can he remain as president?”

3. Is there another story behind the coup attempt?

Erdogan fired and jailed thousands of his political opponents, accusing them of being the followers of Fethullah Gulen, the alleged mastermind of the July 15 coup attempt, which the Turkish President called “a gift from God.”

4. If there is a FETO, is there also an ETO?

Erdogan called Gulen’s movement “the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETO)…. If it is permissible to talk about FETO as a terror group, would it be equally acceptable to refer to the Erdoganist Terror Organization (ETO)?”

5. If Gulen is a terrorist, why did Erdogan work with him till 2013?

Gulen and Erdogan had practically identical religious philosophies until their split in 2013. Why is Gulen a ‘terrorist’ now?

6. Why is it OK to report on PKK attacks but not on ISIS?

“When the PKK or fringe Kurdish groups attack, it often dominates the headlines in Turkey for days as the investigation continues, authorities name suspects, etc…. But when ISIS has attacked, the Turkish government has put an embargo on reports about the investigation.”

7. Why did Turkish intelligence help the Nusra Front? And ISIS?

“Evidence is overwhelming that both the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, and ISIS itself, have received arms, support and equipment from authorities in Turkey. When journalists broke the story — and provided photographic evidence — Erdogan’s response was to arrest the editor of the newspaper that published the scoop. Likewise, when Turkish soldiers stopped an arms shipment into Syria, Erdogan ordered the soldiers’ arrest rather than the smugglers….”

8. Was a Turkish death squad behind the Paris assassinations?

“In 2013, assassins executed three Kurdish activists in their office in Paris. All three were PKK members…. The French captured Omer Guney, a 32-year-old Turk who had arrived in France at age 9.Telephone intercepts after the murders show him calling back to handlers in Turkey’s intelligence agency….”

9. Why did Erdogan appoint his son-in-law oil minister?

“Berat Albayrak, Erdogan’s 37-year-old son-in-law, became Turkey’s energy minister on November 24, 2015. Was he the best qualified? Or were other factors at play?”

10. Can we talk about Erdogan’s associations?

Erdogan is a close friend of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman, who, according to the U.S. Treasury Department “had alleged ties to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden until 2014.” Erdogan persistently declared: “I know Mr. Qadi. I believe in him as I believe in myself. For Mr. Qadi to associate with a terrorist organization, or support one, is impossible.” Erdogan is also close to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of Afghanistan who has “allied himself with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.” Another friend, Khalid Meshaal (the militant leader of Hamas), visited Turkey as Erdogan’s personal guest!

11. What deal have you struck with Putin?

After Erdogan and Putin buried the hatchet earlier this year, they agreed on a pipeline deal and held talks on the Turkish purchase of a Russian missile system. Were there any secret agreements?

12. What explains the court’s 2008 refusal to close the AKP?

In 2008, Turkey’s constitutional court came close to dissolving Erdogan’s ruling party. But, at the last-minute, one justice switched his vote. It is alleged that “a businessman, long hounded by Erdogan, wired money into that justice’s account just before the vote.”

During a Nov. 6 ceremony in Istanbul to receive an honorary doctorate, Erdogan proudly proclaimed: “I don’t care if they call me a dictator or whatever else. It goes in one ear, out the other!”

November 8, 2016
WikiLeaks Reveals Hillary Clinton’s Email Exchanges on Armenian Issues

The whole world is following with great interest the flood of internal emails released by WikiLeaks: over 400,000 emails of the Turkish ruling party (AKP), 2.8 million U.S. diplomatic emails, over 30,000 emails sent or received by Hillary Clinton while she was Secretary of State, and 27,000 emails and attachments hacked from the Democratic National Committee.

I will single out a few out of the hundreds of leaked emails that touch upon Armenia or Turkey:

1) On April 19, 2015, Jake Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy adviser, sent an email to a half dozen senior campaign staffers, including Chairman John Podesta, asking if they should issue a statement on the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Sullivan also wanted to know if Clinton would use the term “genocide” as she did as Senator and presidential candidate eight years ago, or will she avoid that term as she did as Secretary of State? Sullivan pointed out that “the White House studiously avoided using ‘genocide’ so far,” and would probably continue to do so. Sullivan wondered whether Clinton’s campaign should proactively issue a statement on the Armenian Genocide or wait until asked to do so by “Armenian groups.” Sullivan ended his email by acknowledging that the Armenian Genocide issue “matters enormously to Armenian-Americans.” Within hours, Podesta suggested that a quotation from Pope Francis acknowledging the Armenian Genocide be included in the genocide statement which ultimately the Clinton Campaign decided not to issue!

2) Ismail Cobanoglu, First Counselor of the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C., sent an email on September 9, 2015 to Campaign Chairman John Podesta, asking if Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu could “pay a courtesy call on Mrs. Clinton,” in New York, between Sept. 26 and 30. Strangely, Cobanoglu stated that he had first written to the State Department, but was told that Mrs. Clinton was no longer Secretary of State! Cobanoglu told Podesta that Davutoglu is making this request “in light of his prior friendship with Secretary Clinton dating back to the time when they were colleagues as Secretary of State/Foreign Minister.” On the same day, Podesta told Cobanoglu that Mrs. Clinton’s “schedule is quite difficult, but this would be a priority meeting if at all possible. Huma Abedin, the campaign’s Vice Chair, will follow up.” Podesta then asked Ms. Abedin: “How do you want to handle?” She responded the next day to Cobanoglu informing him that Mrs. Clinton “would be happy to meet with the Prime Minister but we aren’t certain that she will be in NY any of days you suggest. We will let you know as soon as we are more clear on her schedule. We will be in touch soon.” It is not known if the requested meeting ever took place.

3) On December 17, 2010, Huma Abedin, who at the time was Secretary of State Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, forwarded her news about a ruling by the Federal Appeals Court, allowing heirs of Armenian Genocide victims to seek compensation from three German life insurance companies. Interestingly, and ominously, the subject line of Abedin’s email stated that Foreign Minister Davutoglu referred to this court case in his earlier phone call to Clinton. The next day, Harold Koh, Legal adviser of the State Department, sent a copy of the court verdict to Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, and Joe MacManus, Executive Assistant to the Secretary of State, asking them to forward this important document to Secretary Clinton. Koh added that “since FM [Foreign Minister] Davutoglu mentioned it in his phone call to her on Friday, we wanted to get this to her ASAP.” Sullivan sent the court verdict to Secretary Clinton with the following note: “Importance: High.” In my opinion, this was an unwarranted and blatant interference by the Turkish Foreign Minister in the US judicial system, seeking to enlist the Secretary of State in pressuring the courts to reverse the verdict! It is not known if Mrs. Clinton took any action in this regard. However, the Federal Court of Appeals subsequently struck down the earlier decision!

Finally, in a March 17, 2016 email, Campaign Chairman John Podesta listed 39 individuals as potential Vice Presidential candidates for Mrs. Clinton. One of the surprising names on the list was Muhtar Kent, a Turkish-American who is Chairman of The Coca Cola Company. His father, Necdet Kent, was Consul General of Turkey in New York City, where Muhtar was born. He attended high school in Mersin, Turkey. As we know, Mrs. Clinton ended up picking Tim Kaine as her running mate, not Muhtar Kent!

October 25, 2016
After Coup Attempt, Turkish Scholar Boldly Speaks on Armenian Genocide

On July 13, two days before the coup attempt in Turkey, Prof. Halil Berktay of Istanbul’s Sabanci University answered six written questions on the Armenian Genocide posed by El Pais, Spain’s largest newspaper. But when El Pais did not publish his answers, Dr. Berktay decided on August 15 to post his interview on a Turkish website, Serbestiyet, under the title: “With or without the coup, genocide was and is genocide.”

Prof. Berktay, a liberal Turkish scholar, told El Pais that he has repeatedly recognized the Armenian Genocide ever since 2002. He described the genocide as “the near-complete extermination and annihilation of Ottoman Armenians.” Dr. Bertktay acknowledged that for his honest views on the Armenian Genocide, “especially before 2002, and even afterwards (though no longer by the government), there has been a huge amount of informal, extra-legal pressure, blackmail, threats or other forms of psychological terror brought to bear on people like me, which I and others have all had to face.”

Answering a question from El Pais: “why does Turkey refuse to review the past?” Dr. Berktay responded: “Back in the 1980’s and 90’s… the denialism of the past was based on ancestor worship or ideological allegiance to Unionism and Ataturkism. What had happened to the Armenians in 1915 was seen as a black blot for Turkish nationalism. Also, while it was not committed by or under the Kemalist Republic, because the Republic had ended up inheriting the mantle of a territory ethnically cleansed of the Armenians, it was in the nature of an inadmissible impurity for the desired lily-white legitimacy of the Kemalist Revolution. So a taboo was placed on it; it became part of the unmentionable and undiscussable. Here and there a few academics, mostly living and working abroad, did speak up. They were lonely voices in the wilderness.” Prof. Berktay then added: beginning in 2000, “things began to change,” with an increasing number of Turkish scholars speaking out on the Armenian Genocide.

The most interesting part of Dr. Bertkay’s interview is his stated reason for the Turkish government’s reluctance to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide: “It may be that the Turkish government does not know what might happen if it were to go ahead and say yes, it was genocide. What would Armenia likely do or demand? Is it going to ask for material compensation, or even land? That is what the Dashnaks as radical Armenian nationalists have been saying all along: Three R’s, as they put it, Recognition, Reparation, Restitution (of land). Certainly the last is something that no Turkish government can possibly ever concede. It is very likely, therefore, that before they take any further step, they would like Armenia to show its hand. Conversely, as long as Armenia keeps its cards close to its chest, recognizing the genocide as genocide will have to wait.”

A careful reading of the Professor’s above statement indicates that he finds the return of lands to Armenia by Turkey not possible, but does not rule out reparations. In my view, while Armenians rightly claim their historic lands, they are willing to accept reparations as an initial step.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Prof. Berktay’s answers is his explanation of Turkey’s reasons for refusal to face its sordid past: “Faced with the peculiar challenge of recognizing the Armenian genocide, large sections of the Turkish public as well as the AKP keep asking, and will keep asking: Why us? And why only us? Are all nations being asked to atone for their past equally stringently? Or is it just Turkey? Meanwhile, what about what ‘they’ did to ‘us’ in the first place? If we recognize the Armenian genocide, will they, too, ever so slightly recognize the tragic plight of the Muslim Turks of Crete, mainland Greece, Bulgaria or Serbia? Who speaks for the Turk? Do we have any friends in the world?”

While I do not agree with some of Prof. Berktay’s explanations, I cannot expect him to have the same position on Armenian issues as I do. After all, he is a Turk, but a righteous Turk, which is not what one can say about Turkish leaders and large segments of Turkish society that still deny the historical facts of the Armenian Genocide!

Prof. Berktay has taken a great risk by posting his answers on the Armenian Genocide on the internet, particularly in the current brutal atmosphere since the July coup attempt when tens of thousands of innocent Turkish citizens have been summarily arrested and thrown into jail!

August 30, 2016