Tag: Hayk Demoyan

  • Hayk Demoyan: Turkey three times attempted genocidal acts against Karabakh

    Hayk Demoyan: Turkey three times attempted genocidal acts against Karabakh

    PanARMENIAN.Net – At least three times in history Turkey has tried to commit genocidal acts while striving to implement the policy of total extermination and deportation of the Armenian population from Karabakh, director of the Armenian Genocide Institute Museum Hayk Demoyan writes in his article titled “Karabakh and Turkey’s genocidal attempts.”

    hayk1The article posted on the AGMI official website goes on saying:

    “From the historical point of view Turkey’s current stance and attempts to put preconditions to Armenia and the policy of pressure with the intent to get necessary concessions from Armenia in the settlement of Karabakh issue seem very actual; moreover, the references to the historical records are important in shedding a light on the origins of the ‘Turkish strategy’ in Karabakh issue,”

    The first attempt

    The expansion of the borders of the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus has started from the 16th century. On the way to the Caspian shores the Turkish armies faced with the heavy resistance of the Armenians of Artsakh (Karabakh) and many times have suffered defeats from the organized resistance of the Karabakh Armenians. In 1725 Sultan Ahmet III (1703-1730) issued a special fatwa to exterminate Armenians for their successful resistance against the Ottomans and ordered to kill them all for bringing the Russians into the Caucasus and blocking the access of the Ottomans towards Baku. The confession of a Turkish general Saleh pasha, who was captured by the Armenians in Karabakh, confirmed that Sultan was aimed at total extermination of local Armenians. He said: “Sultan ordered to exterminate Armenians and Persians (Shia’s – H. D.), since the troops of the Russian Tsar had occupied that shore of the (Caspian) see, thus we have to assault on them. We should remove the Armenians, who are like a wedge between us. We should destroy any obstacle existing on our way and open the way. If there were not you (Armenians), we would have already stepped on Derbend and Baku that belong to us from the ancient times.” [1]. In this 18th century document we see the formation of the Turkish approaches towards ‘non-obedient’ Armenians, who as it was stated, were like a wedge between Istanbul and the Turkic East. After suffering thousands soldiers and pashas, Sultan’s and his allies’ attempts to annex Karabakh and to station the Ottoman forces there failed. Thus, the first attempt of the Ottomans to commit genocide against Karabakh Armenians was not successful, but this was just the beginning…

    The second attempt

    The second attempt to destroy the Armenian population of Karabakh took place after the Ottoman armies invaded the Caucasus during the WWI and created an artificial state baptizing it under the name of ‘Azerbaijan’ – using the name of the North Iranian province with the purpose of annexing the latter to the newly born Azerbaijan Republic. But this was not the only example of the Turkish state-building engineering. The proclamation of ‘Araz republic’ and the ‘South-Eastern Caucasus democratic republic’ followed the creation of Azerbaijan with the intent to ease the Turkish expansionism. (the modern example of such policy is the creation of the Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974). The Caucasus campaign of the Ottoman army resulted in capturing Baku city and committing horrible massacre of the Armenian population of the city in September 1918. After taking Baku, the Ottoman forces launched a new military campaign this time ‘to tranquil’ Armenian resistance in Karabakh. Ottoman war minister Enver pasha, who was one of the architects of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, ordered his cousin Nuri pasha, the commander of the Turkish forces in Azerbaijan, “to clear Azerbaijan of Russians and Armenians, in order to ensure Turkish-Turkic territorial continuity”(!)[2] A week after this order Turkey admitted its defeat in the WWI. The Ottoman army suffered its last defeat in WWI just in Karabakh when a detachment of the Ottoman army on their way of the punitive expedition towards the Southern villages of Karabakh were ambushed by Armenian villagers who destroyed about 400 Ottoman solders. The end of WWI and the Turkish withdrawal failed the second attempt of genocide. Later, as a result of Bolshevik and Kemalist Entente, Karabakh was annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan in 1921.

    The third attempt

    We are not going to claim that the third attempt was a direct policy of an extermination of Karabakh Armenians, but Turkey’s strong support to Azerbaijan in the latter’s attempts at deportation and the crimes against humanity enable us to claim that Turkey was directly involved in a new attempt of committing genocide against the Armenians in Karabakh. It is enough to say that hundreds of soldiers and officers of the Turkish regular army, including 10 generals were involved in the military operations performed against the Armenian self-defense forces. And again Turkey was loser in Karabakh, this time together with Azerbaijan and became a passive spectator of the Baku’s humiliated defeats in 1992-1994.

    The Thrkish interference in Karabakh conflict and the open support to Azerbaijan in the war against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia made Turkey more a part of the conflict rather than the its settlement. The Turkish involvement in the conflict included the following components: threats of military intervention, pressure by displaying armed forces, imposing transportation and energy blockade of Armenia; providing military support to Azerbaijan; developing initiatives directed to the formation of anti-Armenian coalition and informational isolation of Armenia; lobbying Azerbaijani interests in international organizations [3].

    Permanent military menace and attempts at escalation, the blockade of Armenia and the efforts to isolate Armenia from the regional and international politics created a direct threat towards Armenia and Karabakh. Let’s sum up. The first statement based on the above mentioned historical facts is that having the case of the Turkish approaches towards the solution of Karabakh issue in the historical and modern dimensions in some way turned Karabakh into a polygon for approbation and implementation of genocidal policies by Sultans, Young Turks and Kemalists/Republicans. Moreover, Azerbaijani state created by the Ottoman Turkey has adopted the very Turkish code of demographic engineering, i.e. to solve the entire national or minority issues by imposing forced deportations or commiting mass killings and, in this way pave a way to the “safer and more secure” nation state. Nation states of Turkey and Azerbaijan were formed as a result of the extermination of other nations; thus, this fact represents one of the main threats for the future of both states.

    Based on the above mentioned facts and records we can claim that 1. Turkey stands at the origins of the creation of Karabakh issue by the establishment of Azerbaijani state and has attempted to attach Armenian-populated region to it 2. Turkey is one of the sides in Karabakh conflict with an open support to Azerbaijan.

    Triple genocidal attempts and defeats of Turkey in Karabakh from the local Armenians must have a clear message to Ankara: Turkey must recognize the Genocide committed against Armenians and many other nations in the ‘Pax Ottomanica’ since, the rewriting of the history is necessary to make ‘zero problem’ with its own history and memory since Realpolitik is not a solution for the country’s current national identity crisis.

    For Turkey there are not other alternatives.”

  • Turkey and Armenia – Friends and neighbours

    Turkey and Armenia – Friends and neighbours

    Sep 25th 2008 | ANKARA AND YEREVAN
    From The Economist print edition

    Rising hopes of better relations between two historic enemies

    KEMAL ATATURK, father of modern Turkey, rescued hundreds of Armenian women and children from mass slaughter by Ottoman forces during and after the first world war. This untold story, which is sure to surprise many of today’s Turks [sic], is one of many collected by the Armenian genocide museum in Yerevan that “will soon be brought to light on our website,” promises Hayk Demoyan, its director.

    His project is one more example of shifting relations between Turkey and Armenia. On September 6th President Abdullah Gul became the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia when he attended a football match. Mr Gul’s decision to accept an invitation from Armenia’s president, Serzh Sarkisian, has raised expectations that Turkey may establish diplomatic ties and open the border it closed during the 1990s fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. The two foreign ministers were planning to meet in New York this week. Armenia promises to recognise Turkey’s borders and to allow a commission of historians to investigate the fate of the Ottoman Armenians.

    Reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia could tilt the balance of power in the Caucasus. Russia is Armenia’s closest regional ally. It has two bases and around 2,000 troops there. The war in Georgia has forced Armenia to rethink its position. Some 70% of its supplies flow through Georgia, and these were disrupted by Russian bombing. Peace with Turkey would give Armenia a new outside link. Some think Russia would be happy too. “It would allow Russia to marginalise and lean harder on Georgia,” argues Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Media Institute.

    Mending fences with Armenia would bolster Turkey’s regional clout. And it might also help to kill a resolution proposed by the American Congress to call the slaughter of the Armenians in 1915 genocide. That makes the Armenian diaspora, which is campaigning for genocide recognition, unhappy. Some speak of a “Turkish trap” aimed at rewriting history to absolve Turkey of wrongdoing. Indeed, hawks in Turkey are pressing Armenia to drop all talk of genocide.

    Even more ambitiously, the hawks want better ties with Armenia to be tied anew to progress over Nagorno-Karabakh. But at least Mr Gul seems determined to press ahead. “If we allow the dynamics that were set in motion by the Yerevan match to slip away, we may have to wait another 15-20 years for a similar chance to arise,” he has said.

    Source: Economist, 25 September 2008