Was Eastern Anatolia The Original Homeland Of The Armenians ?

Even Armenian historians disagree on this question. Let us examine some of their contradictory theories while looking into Anatolian history.

1. The Biblical Noah Theory. According to this idea, the Armenians descended from Hayk, great-great grandson of the Biblical patriarch Noah. Since Noah's Arc is supposed to have come to rest on Mount Ararat, the advocates of this idea conclude that eastern Anatolia must have been the original Armenian homeland, adding that Hayk lived some four hundred years and expanded his dominion as far as Babylon. This claim is based entirely on fables, not on any scientific evidence, and is not worthy of further consideration. The historian Auguste Carriere summarily dismisses it stating that "it depends entirely on information provided by some Armenian historians, most of which was made up."(1)

2. The Urartu Theory. Some Armenians claim that they were the people of Urartu, which existed in eastern Anatolia starting about 3000 B.C. until it was defeated and destroyed by the Medes, with its territory being contested for some time by Lydia and the Medes until it finally fell under the influence of the latter. This claim has no basis in fact. No form of the name Armenian is found in any inscription in Anatolia dating from that period, nor was there any Similarity at all between the Armenian language and that of Urartu, the former being a member of the Satem group oflndo European languages, while the latter was similar to the Ural-Altaic languages. Nor were there any similarities between their cultures. The most recent archaeological finds in the area of Erzurum support these conclusions very clearly. There is, therefore, absolutely no evidence at all to support the claim that the people of Urartu were Armenian.

3. The Thracian-Phrygian Theory. The theory most favored by Armenian historians claims that they descended from a Thracian-Phrygian group, that originated in the Balkan Peninsula and by the pressure oflllyrians migrated to eastern Anatolia in the sixth century B.C. This theory is based on the fact that the name Armenian was mentioned for the first time in the Behistan inscription of the Mede (Persian) Emperor Darius from the year 521 B.C., "l defeated the Armenians." If accepted, of course, this view effectively contradicts and disproves the Noah and Urartu theories.

4. The Southern Caucasus Theory. This idea claims that the Armenians are related racially and culturally to the peoples of the Southern Caucasus and that, therefore, they originated there. it is, however, supported only by the fact that Darius defeated the Armenians in the Caucasus. The Armenians are in no way related to any of the Caucasian races.

5. The Turanian Theory. Some Armenians have adduced similarities of certain elements of the Armenian language and culture with those of some Turkish and Azeri tribes of the Caucasus to document a relationship, but this remains to be proved.

Whichever, if any, of these theories is correct, it is very certain that the Armenians did not originate in Anatolia, nor did they live there for three to four thousand years, as claimed. They have put forward these ideas merely to support their claims that the Turks drove them out of a homeland in which they have lived for thousands of years, but they can not stand up to the facts.

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Have Turks Always Attacked And Misruled Armenians Throughout History ?

Armenian propagandists have claimed that the Turks mistreated non-Muslims, and in particular Armenians, throughout history in order to provide support for their claims of "genocide" against the Ottoman Empire, since it would otherwise be difficult for them to explain how the Turks, who had lived side by side with the Armenians in peace for some 600 years, suddenly rose up to massacre them all. The Armenians moreover, have tried to interpret Turkish rule in terms of a constant struggle between Christianity and Islam, thus to assure belief in whatever they say about the Turks on the part of the modem Christian world.

The evidence of history overwhelmingly denies these claims. We already have seen that the contemporary Armenian historians themselves related how the Armenians of Byzantium welcomed the Seljuk conquest with celebrations and thanksgivings to God for having rescued them from Byzantine oppression. The Seljuks gave protection to an Armenian church which the Byzantines had been trying to destroy. They abolished the oppressive taxes which the Byzantines had imposed on the Armenian churches, monasteries and priests, and in fact exempted such religious institutions from all taxes. The Armenian community was left free to conduct its internal affairs in its own way, including religious activities and deducation, and there never was any time at which Armenians or other non-Muslims were compelled to convert to Islam. The Armenian spiritual leaders in fact went to Seljuk Sultan Melikshah to thank him for this protection. The Armenian historian Mathias of Edessa relates that,

"Melikshah's heart is full of affection and goodwill for Christians; he has treated the sons of Jesus Christ very well, and he has given the Armenian people affluence, peace, and happiness.''(3)

After the death of the Seljuk Sultan Kilich Arslan, the same historian wrote,

"Kilich Arslan's death has driven Christians into mourning since he was a charitable person of high character. "

How well the Seljuk Turks treated the Armenians is shown by the fact that some Armenian noble families like the Tashirk family accepted Islam of their own free will and joined the Turks in fighting Byzantium.

Turkish tradition and Muslim law dictated that non-Muslims should be well treated in Turkish and Muslim empires. The conquering Turks therefore made agreements with their non-Muslim subjects by which the latter accepted the status ofzhimmi, agreeing to keep order and pay taxes in return for protection of their rights and traditions. People from different religions were treated with an unprecedented tolerance which was reflected into the philosophies based on goodwill and human values cherished by great philosophers in this era such as Yunus Emre and Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi who are well-known in the Islamic world with their benevolent mottoes such as "having the same view for all 72 different nations" and "you will be welcome whoever you are, and whatever you believe in". This was in stark contrast to the terrible treatment which Christian rulers and conquerors often have meted out to Christians of other sects, let alone non-Christians such as Muslims and Jews, as for example the Byzantine persecution of the Armenian Gregorians, Venetian persecution of the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of the Morea and the Aegean islands, and Hungarian persecution of the Bogomils.

The establishment and expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and in particular the destruction of Byzantium following Fatih Mehmed's conquest of Istanbul in 1453 opened a new era of religious, political, social, economic and cultural prosperity for the Armenians as well as the other non-Muslim and Muslim peoples of the new state. The very first Ottoman ruler, Osman Bey (1300-1326), permitted the Armenians to establish their first religious center in western Anatolia, at Kutahya, to protect them from Byzantine oppression. This center subsequently was moved, along with the Ottoman capital, first to Bursa in 1326 and then to Istanbul in 1461, with Fatih Mehmet issuing a ferman definitively establishing the Armenian Patriarchate there under Patriarch Hovakim and his successors(4). As a result, thousands of Armenians emigrated to Istanbul from Iran, the Caucasus, eastern and central Anatolia, the Balkans and the Crimea, not because of force or persecution, but because the great Ottoman conqueror had made his empire into a true center of Armenian life. The Armenian community and church thus expanded and prospered as parts of the expansion and prosperity of the Ottoman Empire.

The Gregorian Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, like the other major religious groups, were organized into millet communities under their own religious leaders. Thus the ferman issued by Fatih Mehmet establishing the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul specified that the Patriarch was not only the religious leader of the Armenians, but also their secular leader. The Armenians had the same rights as Muslims, but they also had certain special privileges, most important among which was exemption from military service. Armenians and other non- Muslims generally paid the same taxes as Muslims, with the exception of the Poll Tax (Harach or Jizye), which was imposed on them in place of the state taxes based particularly on Muslim religious law, the Alms Tax (Zakat) and the Tithe (Osur), from which non-Muslims were exempted. The Armenian millet religious leaders themselves assessed and collected the Poll Taxes from their followers and turned the collections over to the Treasury officials of the state.

The Armenians were allowed to establish religious foundations (vakif) to provide financial support for their religious, cultural, educational and charity activities, and when needed the Ottoman state treasury gave additional financial assistance to the Armenian institutions which carried out these activities as well as to the Armenian Patriarchate itself. These Armenian foundations remain in operation to the present day in the Turkish Republic, providing substantial financial support to the operations of the Armenian church.

By Ottoman law all Christian subjects who were not Greek Orthodox were included in the Armenian Gregorian millet. Thus the Paulicians and Yakubites in Anatolia as well as the Bogomils and Gypsies in the Balkans were counted as Armenians, leading to substantial disputes in later times as to the total number of Armenians actually living in the Empire.

The Armenian community expanded and prospered as a result of the freedom granted by the sultans. At the same time Armenians shared, and contributed to, the Turkish-Ottoman culture and ways of life and government to such an extent that they earned the particular trust and confidence of the sultans over the centuries, gaining the attribute "the loyal millet". Ottoman Armenians became extremely wealthy bankers, merchants, and industrialists, while many at the same time rose to high positions in governmental service. In the 19th century, for example, twenty-nine Armenians achieved the highest governmental rank of Pasha. There were twenty-two Armenian ministers, including the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Trade and Post, with other Armenians making major contributions to the departments concerned with agriculture, economic development, and the census. There also were thirty-three Armenian representatives appointed and elected to the Parliaments formed after 1826, seven ambassadors, eleven consul-generals and consuls, eleven university professors, and forty-one other officials of high rank.(5)

Over the centuries Armenians also made major contributions to Ottoman Turkish art, culture and music, producing many artists of first rank who are objects of praise and sources of pride for Turks as well as Armenians in Turkey. The first Armenian printing press was established in the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.

Thus the Armenians and Turks, and all the various races of the Empire lived in peace and mutual trust over the centuries, with no serious complaints being made against the Ottoman system or administration which made such a situation possible. It is true that, from time to time, internal difficulties did arise within some of the individual millets. Within the Armenian millet disputes arose over the election of the patriarch between the "native" Armenians, who had come to Istanbul from Anatolia and the Crimea, and those called "eastern" or "foreign" Armenians, who came from Iran and the Caucasus. These groups often complained against each other to the Ottomans, trying to gain governmental support for their own candidates and interests, and at the same time complaining about the Ottomans whenever the decisions went against them, despite the long-standing Ottoman insistence on maintaining strict neutrality between the groups. The gradual triumph of the "easterners" led to the appointment of nonreligious individuals as Patriarchs, to corruption and misrule within the Armenian millet, and to bloody clashes among conflicting political groups, against which the Ottomans were forced to intervene to prevent the Armenians from annihilating each other.

These internal disputes, as well as the general decline of religious standards within the Gregorian millet led many Armenians to accept the teachings of foreign Catholic and Protestant missionaries sent into the Empire during the 19th century, causing the creation of separate millets for them later in the century. The Armenian Gregorian leaders asked the Ottoman government to intervene and prevent such conversions, but the Ottomans refrained from doing so on the grounds that it was an internal problem which had to be dealt with by the millet and not the state. Bloody clashes followed, with the Gregorian patriarchs Chuhajian and Tahtajian going so far to excommunicate and banish all Armenian protestants(6). Later on, serious clashes also emerged among the Armenian Catholics as to the nature of their relationship with the Pope, with the latter excommunicating all those who did not accept his supremacy, forcing the Ottomans finally to intervene and reconcile the two Catholic groups in 1888.

The freedom granted and the great tolerance shown by the Ottomans to non-Muslims was so well known throughout Europe that the empire of the sultans became a major place of refuge for those fleeing from religious and political persecution. Starting with the thousands of Jews who fled from persecution in Spain following its re-conquest in 1492, Jews fled to the Ottoman Empire from the regular pogroms to which they were subjected in Central and East Europe and Russia. Catholics and Protestants likewise fled to the Ottoman Empire, often entering the service of the sultans and making major contributions to Ottoman military and governmental life. Many of the political refugees from the reaction that followed the 1848 revolutions in Europe also fled for protection to the Ottoman Empire.

The claims that the Ottomans misruled non-Muslims in general and the Armenians in particular thus are disproved by history, as attested by major western historians, from the Armenians Asoghik and Mathias to Voltaire, Lamartine, Claude Farrere, Pierre Loti, Nogueres Hone Caetani, Philip Marshall Brown, Michelet, Sir Charles Wilson, Politis, Arnold, Bronsart, Roux, Grousset Edgar Granville Gamier, Toynbee, Bernard Lewis, Shaw, Price, Lewis Thomas, Bombaci and others, some of whom could certainly not be labelled as pro-turkish. To cite but a few of them:

Voltaire:

"The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught to Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory"

Philip Marshall Brown:

"Despite the great victory they won, Turks have generously granted to the people in the conquered regions the right to administer themselves according to their own rules and traditions."

Politis who was the Foreign Minister in the Greek Government led by Prime Minister Venizelos:

"The rights and interests of the Greeks in Turkey could not be better protected by any other power but the Turks."

J. W. Arnold:

" It is an undeniable historic fact that the Turkish armies have never interfered in the religious and cultural affairs in the areas they conquered."

German General Bronsart:

"Unless they are forced, Turks are the world's most tolerant people towards those of other religions."

Even when Napoleon Bonaparte sought to stir a revolt among the Armenian Catholics of Palestine and Syria to support his invasion in 1798-1799, his Ambassador in Istanbul General Sebastian! replied that "The Armenians are so content with their lives here that this is impossible."

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Why Demoyan Kisses Me Now by Saying Ataturk Is A Hero ?

This "Untold Story" has most likely remained untold for a reason... work out the dates, look at where Ataturk was at relevant times and his rank/position, and you can likely come up with the answer.

Or, just read the first few pages of Ataturk's Nutuk (Great Speech), even within the first few paragraphs, it tells you precisely what his position was with respect to Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire who were agitating for the breakup of the Empire, ethnically cleansing Ottoman Muslims & Jews from their midst and setting up their own ethnically pure states in Anatolia. If you read further you will also learn Ataturk's views of Armenian activity in the southeastern Anatolian provinces AFTER WWI, and he does not talk about rescuing Armenians, but of rescuing Ottoman Turks from French armed marauding Armenians committing massacres and other atrocities.

Please let us all know when this Armenian genocide museum curator finally makes available to the public all these "unseen" documents AND explains why he has been hiding them from the public for so long. . .

Just want to share a bit more about Hayk Demoyan. This is the same Hayk Demoyan who has announced the following in a Guardian article just a few days before the article above:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/22/turkey

Taken directly from the Guardian article above (and why am I not surprised that it is the liberal leftist Guardian doing its Turk bashing as always)
------------------
Historical documents proved Atatürk committed "war crimes" against Armenians and other groups in his drive to create an ethnically homogeneous Turkish state, Demoyan insisted. "Fear of rewriting history is the main fear of modern Turkey," said Demoyan, director of The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia's capital.

"It is a fear of facing historical reality and causing a total collapse of the ideological axis that modern republican Turkey was formed around. Turks get panicked when you compare Atatürk's legacy to Lenin.

Atatürk was sentenced to death in absentia by a military judge to punish war crimes during the first world war. There are documents from non-Armenian sources listing him as a war criminal ."
---------------
Enough said.

So now this same Demoyan, a couple of days later, is coming up with an announcement that will suddenly make a Schindler out of this "war criminal"? He must have realized how unacceptable his prior defamation of Ataturk must have been to all Turks. But the new stuff sounds very Hollywoody wishy washy, warm and fuzzy to me...

So now the new game is making a saviour out of Ataturk - someone who helped the Armenian victims during their horrific ordeal of genocide. We're on it and we see the new chess move. Not too bright, but I gotta say it's original and unprecedented..

---

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, 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.

-Demoyan INSISTED that Ataturk wanted to create a homogeneous Turkish state? Homogeneous in what respect?

Does Demoyan even know who the people living in Anatolia are? Clearly Demoyan knows nothing about the people who fought the war of independence after WWI to form the Republic of Turkey.

The only homogeneity Ataturk sought was with respect to language and that is why Ottoman Armenians living in Istanbul who never supported the Dashnaks became a part of Ataturk's nationalist forces.

Sounds like Demoyan is confusing Turks for Dashnaks. It's the Dashnaks that wanted an ethnically pure state and that ethnically cleansed Turks out the lands that became Soviet Armenia. Just more typical flagrantly false information out of genocide propogandists. Add it to the lengthy and ever increasing list of forged documents and falsehoods.

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12304946

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Nationalism, Solidarity And Stereotypes About Armenians Or Turks

The truth is something that has always been difficult to judge, and when there are emotions, beliefs, and assumptions mixed into the equation it becomes almost impossible to judge as is the case with determining whether the Armenian Genocide allegation has any merit. One obstacle we face all the time, is whether you meet someone who strongly believes in the Armenian Genocide or who strongly disagrees with it, they both tell you "you can't deny the facts, this is the truth." So how do you determine which side is right? How do you know whether there is a conspiracy to create a genocide to promote hatred and lawsuits, or a conspiracy to exterminate a people?

One thing we know is true for sure, both sides have strong arguments, and both sides have facts. It is the interpretation of those facts, that lead us to a conclusion of genocide or just another ethnic warfare during the heat of World War I.

If you meet Armenians, they will most likely, though not always, agree with the Armenian Genocide, because they were taught to believe that their people were targeted without provocation just like the Jews during World War II. If you meet Turks, they will most likely, though not always, disagree with the Armenian Genocide, because they believe that the Ottoman Empire was a tolerant empire that tried its best simply to keep order and the Armenians through nationalism began an organized rebellion to create a Free Armenia.

Turks argue that since the rebellion failed, ending in relocations of a majority of Armenians to another Ottoman territory, the Armenians have begun a hate campaign to blame the Turks for genocide because they could not accept defeat.

Armenians argue that the extermination failed, and many Armenians were able to escape in order to tell the world about how they were all almost killed.

Then there are independent historians/scholars, but it's difficult to figure out who you should trust, because both sides have them, and both sides blame the other for being paid agents of organizations or governments which take sides on the issue. The reality? There is no independent organization/person/government that can judge this dark and clouded history.

Armenians want you to assume their facts as truth and to accept their conclusion because genocide has occurred in the past and it should be spoken out against always. They even point to the denial of the genocide as evidence of the crime of genocide, which is a logical fallacy, as both the innocent and the guilty will deny their crime.

As an individual, one should look at facts, evidence, and motives to judge what happened, and to keep an open-mind. One should not conclude on either side, because there will always be new research, to show there was or was not an Armenian Genocide.

Emotions such as nationalism, solidarity with your side, and stereotypes about Armenians or Turks or their religion, should be put aside. After all, the Ottoman leaders who were alleged to have planned this crime, were murdered without trial and without proof and so the closure that Armenians speak of, has already occurred, and they should have moved on back in the 1930s.

To claim that the denial of the genocide is a crime, opens old wounds, or is something negative, is disrespect to the scientific method and historians who will always discover new facts about historical events whatever the conclusion may be.

The problem is the issue has become politicized, with campaigns on both sides to make others accept their conclusion, one should ignore these. Politicians should definitely be ignored on topics such as this. Historians and scholars should be encouraged to research the issue regardless of their conclusion. The facts should be discussed rather than the blame, hate, and punishment.

If you want to learn the truth about whether the Armenian Genocide was a reality or not, you must look through the evidence, the archives, the many books on both sides, and learn the facts and then interpret them appropriately using motive. Some will have you believe that a genocide can happen anywhere because genocide is irrational--genocide is never irrational, it is carefully planned, created with a specific purpose, and executed carefully.

Though current research is insufficient to prove that the Armenian Genocide is real, this conclusion can change at any moment, and until clear solid evidence is provided, the Ottoman government should be assumed innocent until guilty. Excuses about how evidence might has been covered up or hidden is not how one judges history.

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Davit The Armenian Informer 1908 & The Dashnaks

Table of Contents
Davit Decided to Fight Back
Dashnaks were Raided
February 5th Raid
Davit the Informer Assassinated by the Dashnaks
Dashnaks Iron-Grip on Armenian Society . .

Davit (also known as Davo or David) was a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks) in Van, Turkey. Davit was mistreated by the ARF Dashnaks and their leaders and decided to help the Ottoman authorities by informing them of smuggling routes, weapons caches, bomb factories, the inner structure of the Dashnaks, and revealed their future plans for revolution and massacre of the Turks during the 1900s.

Davit was a member of the Dashnaks and was in love with a girl named Vatan and wished to marry her. Aram Pafla (Aram Manukyan) as well had feelings for her and used his powerful Dashnak position to forbid Davit from marrying her. [1]

Davit decided to go to Tiflis to ask the leaders of the Dashnak committee to obtain permission to marry Vatan from Aram's superiors. The leaders agreed with Aram's decision and forbade Davit to marry Vatan.
Davit Decided to Fight Back

Davit angry with the way Aram treated him, he went to the Ottoman governor of Van, Ali Riza Pasa. He told him everything he knew about the Dashnaks and became an informant for Ottoman national guard.
Dashnaks were Raided

Using Davit's information, the governor made multiple operations in February 1908 along with Davit raiding weapons and arm caches in Van city of the Dashnaks.

February 5th Raid
On February 5th, 200 rounds of ammunition were discovered in Surb Kirkor Monastery, eight miles from now. The very same day 200,000 more rounds and 500 rifles were captured in the Garden District. [2]

More searches the next day revealed 300 packages of dynamite. By this time, Dashnak revolutionaries began to resist the raids by Ottoman soldiers by firing upon Ottoman soldiers in the Garden District. The Ottoman government reported 17 Ottoman casualties.

The government estimated that over 2 thousand weapons, five thousand bombs, hundreds of thousands of cartridges, and many other military materials. [3]

The government was surprised to find so many weapons that could arm a brigade of troops and severely damage the Ottoman army. They were even more surprised that many of the weapons found were of higher quality than the Ottoman weapons. The smuggling for years by the Dashnaks through Russia and Iran had been incredibly successful, but because of Davit's belief that the Dashnaks were not doing any good for the Armenian people, the Ottomans were able to severely damage the Dashnak Cause.

Davit the Informer Assassinated by the Dashnaks
After hiding out for many months, Davit decided to go to the market one day, he was assassinated in the Hacbogan Market by a Dashnak assassin called Dacat Terlimazian. The Assassin fired into the crowd killing Davit and a number of bystanders. Eight bystanders were killed.

The story of Davit, is corroborated by the Ottoman archives, and by K. S. Papazian's book "Patriotism Reverted" in which the version of the story is that Aram raped Vatan and Davit sought revenge.

Dashnaks Iron-Grip on Armenian Society
There are thousands of stories similar to what Davit experienced, some may never be heard of. Armenian Church leaders, notables, intellectuals, and professionals were murdered in cold blood because they believed that the Dashnaks were not helping the Armenian people but hurting them. Their revolution was unnecessary and based on the spread of irrational Armenian Nationalism that caused many youths of Armenia to unite for a cause that was not ever defined except by violence and bloodshed.

Hundreds of thousands of Turks died, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and other Muslims in the region during the Armenian Revolution (1895-1918), including the governor Ali Riza Pasa who was involved in the story of Davit. The Dashnaks committed atrocities in order to provoke counter-massacres, which did happen, where Armenians would be killed, and Dashnaks would have to ability to spread propaganda in European and Western Medias in order to convince foreign powers to intervene and grant them independence like they had to Bulgaria and many other nations that use to be a part of the Ottoman Empire.

Once an Armenian sniper was captured attacking the French Embassy in Turkey, when interrogated he revealed that he was going to blame the Turks for attacking the French embassy in order to compel France to invade the Ottoman Empire. He said the plan was introduced to him by the Dashnaks.

Sources
The Armenian Rebellion at Van by Justin McCarthy (2007), p. 111
The Armenian Rebellion at Van by Justin McCarthy (2007), p. 112
The Armenian Rebellion at Van by Justin McCarthy (2007), p. 112

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Raffi Hovannisian’s Unpublished Interview With Turkish News Magazine “Yeni Aktuel”

September 5, 2008
Yerevan—On August 21, Armenia’s first foreign minister and Heritage Party founder Raffi K. Hovannisian received a request for an interview from the “Yeni Aktuel” magazine of Turkey. A few days later he delivered, and the magazine thankfully received, his responses to its questions. For reasons yet unknown, the interview has not to date been published.

For the record, the unmodified original transcript of questions and answers follows:

“Q- President Sarkisyan has invited Turkish President Abdullah Gul to visit Armenia on September 6 to watch the World Cup qualifying match between Armenia and Turkey. How do you think about that? According your opinion, what must do Turkish President? What do you prefer as an Armenian citizen?

A- We know well that the opportunities for and challenges of Armenia’s and Turkey’s ultimate reconciliation cannot be solved in a 90-minute football match. Only an honest and brave dialogue—its format flexible, its allegiance to truth unshakeable—can bring our nations the peace and friendship we desire.

Q- Can this be a good opportunity for Turkish and Armenian relationship if we considere that Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic links since 1990’s and the border between Turkey and Armenia is closed.

A- There is never a bad time to begin good relations. The absence of diplomatic ties and open frontiers has been Ankara’s unilateral policy of choice.

Q- Actually, what are the expectations of Armenian people from Turkey? What must do Turkey to re-create relations between two countries?

A- The Armenian people expect good faith and integrity: good faith in process and integrity of substance. In respect of the latter, it is crucial to most citizens of Armenia that Turkey face the exclusionist legacy of the Great Armenian Dispossession—beginning with recognizing the genocidal past, teaching it, and atoning for it through, inter alia, a joint celebration of the Armenian civilization from Mount Ararat and Ani to all the other capitals, towns, villages, fortresses, schools, academies, churches, and monasteries of the ancestral homeland; the conduct of a full inventorization, restoration, and operationalization of the Armenian cultural heritage within its jurisdiction; the realization of a guaranteed right of secure voluntary return for the progeny and descendants of the dispossessed; and an end to its long-standing blockade of Armenia, which constitutes an act of enmity and a material breach of the very Soviet-Turkish treaties on which Ankara relies to assert its eastern frontier. Only through a landmark demonstration of fortitude, good will, and sincerity can the sovereign Republics of Turkey and Armenia come to their first-ever bilateral agreement in all of history.

Q- On your opinion, what is the Turkish image for an Armenian? What do Armenians feel about Turkey and Turks?

A- I appreciate the distinction you make, because in reality governments and peoples are different—and, unfortunately in the Armenian case, conflicting—concepts. I cannot speak for Armenia’s government. But it seems to me that the majority of Armenians bear no inherent hostility toward the people of Turkey and, quite the contrary, are ready and happy to begin a conciliation process, so long as it is founded on respect—for each other and for the truth. My grandmother, a Genocide survivor from Ordu, was saved as a little girl by a Turkish family of good conscience whom she blessed until her dying day.

Q- On your opinion, how these two countries can solve commun problems?

A- How do two neighbors solve problems? They talk. They talk politely and respectfully. They talk honestly. Most importantly, they talk bravely. If either side lacks any of these commitments—if the aim, in other words, is to achieve not peace but a momentary detente—then all of these discussions are ephemeral and fruitless.

Q- What is your opinion about Turkish prime minister Erdogan’s proposal about a “Caucasian Cooperation Platform.”

A- Cooperation is key to conflict resolution, but we must define the goals for which we cooperate. If the objective is to forge a lasting peace between Armenia and Turkey based on a fundamental acceptance of history and a courageously-negotiated program to overcome all outstanding matters of division, then I applaud the letter and spirit of that cooperation. But if the mission is to engineer a geopolitical lockdown or to contractualize a revision of Turkey’s past, there is neither purpose nor morality to it. The relevant scenarios are there for the choosing; it remains for us to break out of the box and shift the strategic paradigm in resolution to a future where both nations become partners in a common neighborhood of liberty, human rights, democratic values, and shared security.”

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