Usa Forum - Génocide Arménien: la Turquie aurait déjà raté le train ...

Ali Asker

2/19/2005 4:58:00 PM

Génocide Arménien: la Turquie aurait déjà raté le train ...

Le célèbre et influent éditorialiste turc Mehmet Ali BIRAND
(notamment présentateur pour CNN-Türk) s'est une nouvelle fois
exprimé sur le génocide arménien et le malaise que provoque ce sujet
en Turquie. Dans son article intitulé: "Nous avons déjà raté le
train ..." il essaie une nouvelle fois de nier le génocide arménien
et se résigne finalement à envisager timidement que l'opinion turque
puisse un jour, accepter de revoir son histoire Cet article prouve une
nouvelle fois que la question de la négation du génocide arménien
est une politique menée par les Gouvernements turcs successifs... Le
CDCA vous propose une traduction complète de cet article ("We've
already missed the train...par Mehmet Ali BIRAND - Turkish Daily News -
9 février 2005 ), réalisée par ses soins:

Il est temps que nous acceptions le fait que les revendications
arméniennes prétendant qu'ils ont subi un génocide ont commencé à
porté leurs fruits,particulièrement en Occident.

Les Arméniens ont été assidus dans le respect de leurs objectifs
depuis les 75 dernières années. Ils ont publié des milliers de
livres et d'articles. Ils ont fondé des chaires dans les universités
et convaincu l'opinion internationale. Et à la longue il ont gagné la
reconnaissance internationale en dépit du fait que leurs données
étaient insuffisantes et qu'elles ne reflétaient pas la vérité.

Nous, pendant ce temps, nous sommes restés sur la touche à observer.
Nous étions rassurés par la seule propagande. Nous pensions que nous
pouvions écarter ce doigt pointé en feignant que les accusations
n'existaient pas. Nous croyions que l'opinion internationale admettrait
la vérité tôt ou tard. Mais nous faisions erreur. L'exact opposé de
ce que nous attendions est arrivé. Il n'y plus de raison maintenant de
se lamenter sur ce gâchis.

Nous ouvrons ainsi un nouveau chapitre. Nous devons agir en conformité
avec la situation réelle et limiter les dégats au minimum à ce
moment précis.

Nous connaissons tous Yusuf Halaçoglu. Il exerce la fonction de
président de la Fondation d'Histoire Turque depuis 11 ans. Il a
participé à l'émission "Manset" vendredi dernier et il a réitéré
la réalité de la situation actuelle, qui nécessite un avertissement
vital. Nous ne pouvons désormais plus surmonter cette situation par la
propagande via la publication de documents, livres et films. Nous
devrions continuer nos efforts dans ces domaines mais nous devons
commencer à prendre des initiatives qui susciteront l'intérêt : des
initiatives politiques et historiques. Nous devons nous concentrer sur
une strategie.

Sa suggestion, comme l'ancien ambassadeur Yalim Eralp l'avait dit, est
que la Turquie prenne les commandes et presse les Nations Unis de
mettre en place un comité d'investigation. La conséquence de cet
effort conjoint, l'enquête et le résultat de cette dernière, donnera
vraiment une marge de manoeuvre à la Turquie. Pendant ce temps, la
partie Turque pourra prouver à travers de la documentation qu'il n'y a
pas eu de génocide et que ce qui s'est passé, ce sont des tueries des
deux côtés, les Ottomans punissant ceux qu'ils jugeaint coupables. En
d'autres termes, les Turcs sont assez confiants quant à
l'aboutissement. Il est vital à cet instant qu'une personne qui est un
érudit sur le sujet prenne position et proclame : "Nous sommes forts,
mais ceci est de la responsabilité des politiciens. La recherche
scientifique est insuffisante".

Les responsables de l'Etat doivent se réveiller, développer une
stratégie et réaliser que nous n'arriveront à rien en "laissant le
travail aux historiens". Il est temps d'impliquer les Nations Unis dans
l'action et de découvrir de nouveaux horizons qui auront un impact
dans l'arène internationale.

Allez, Réveillez vous.

Les politiciens devraient être au premier plan

J'ai parcouru un article intéressant du Prof. M. Sükrü Hanioglu et
un résumé de ce dernier par Mehmet Barlas.
Hanioglu suscite l'intérêt de chacun par son aisance et sa facilité
à traiter de l'approche de l'état Turc par rapport aux accusations
mensongères des Arméniens.

La réalité actuelle est clairement exprimée dans les mots d'Hanioglu
résumés par Barlas : Alors que d'un côté on attend le
perfectionnisme de la part d'un historien au service d'une idéologie
officielle, on attend d'autant plus qu'il parvienne à une conclusion
similaire à travers des "documents", à la manière des résultats
obtenus par un scientifique dans un laboratoire.

Les diverses interprétations sur la Révolution Française et le rôle
de l' "Ancient Régime" qui ont été faites lors des 100e et 200e
anniversaires de la révolte et de l'élimination des Janissaires,
longtemps considérés comme "évènement favorable", ont été admises
comme les raisons fondamentales pour l'instauration de la dictature de
Bab Ali à la fin du 19e siècle.

L'interprétation des historiens Arabes à propos d'Abdülhamid II a
été sujette à un changement drastique à la suite de la guerre
Israelo-Arabe de 1967. Enfin, un historien Turc estimé qui écrivit
une étude exhaustive du coup d'état du 31 Mars, jugea approprié de
définir en 1994 cet événement comme un "soulèvement
fondamentaliste" alors qu'il pensait différemment dan les années
1970.

La Loi de Déportation de 1915 et la thèse officielle Turque plaidant
pour que l'intention finale de cette loi soit laissée aux historiens
et la thèse qui a été partagée par les administrations diverses ne
semble pas trop plausible, non plus.

Laisser les historiens interpréter le sujet ne mène à rien. Nous
avons échoué en tant que société à construire une tactique
appropriée envers un sujet aussi sensible, et cela a mené à des
problèmes sur la scène internationale.

Nous avons fait un choix sur un certain terrain et avons cru que cela
resterait la réalité ultime. Mais parfois au contraire,
l'interprétation de certains évènements change aussi. Ce qui était
connu comme un "déplacement" dans le passé peut être vu comme un
"génocide" par l'opinion publique générale.

Il est temps d'ouvrir de tel sujets au débat public.
(www.cdca.asso.fr, 10 février 2005)

http://www.inf...

10 Answers

marktrivers

2/19/2005 5:46:00 PM

After Europeans very generously supported and sponsored Greek,
Armenian, Arab and other terrorists, with a veracious appetite for
innocent Turkish blood, to massacre innocent and defenceless Turkish
subjects of Ottoman empire and to ethnically cleanse Ottoman
territories off of their Turkish inhabitants during WWI, and after they
harbored, supported, sponsored PKK/KADEK terrorist organization which
murdered nearly fourty thousands innocent human beings to destroy
Turkey to establish a marxist, lennisist, communist PKK/KADEK
dictortship in Turkey, and other terrorist and extremist Islamist
terrorist organizations and persons with the same purpose, and Armenian
terrorists who, during 1970s and '80s, murdered hundreds of Turkish
diplomats, their family members, colleagues, embassy personnel (Turkish
and local), and having missed no chance whatsoever to fabricate
anti-Turkish hate propaganda based on total lies in every possible
instance and relentlessly complain about Turkey, it is very clear that
the purpose of Europe is to destroy the democratic Republic of Turkey
and totally wipe out the Turkish race/nation off of the face of Earth.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Terrorist Armenians raped, tortured, massacred millions of innocent and
defenceless Turks, Jews, Kurds, Arabs and other non-Armenians in
Ottoman Eastern Anatolia during WWI (with direct and generous support
from their allies, the victors of WWI including Czarist Russia which
also created the mess in the Middle East, including the fake state of
Iraq, millions of people are suffering from now) to ethnically cleanse
the area for an Armenian homeland which never existed.

The rest of the Ottoman Armenian population either very blindly
followed their terrorist leaders (who were ".. craven and mean-spirited
and exel in nothing except drinking ..imperfect Christians" - Marco
Polo), or remained totally complacent.

After WWI ended, the British convened the Malta Tribunals to try
Ottoman officials for alleged crimes against Armenians. All of the
accused were acquitted.

The Peace Treaty of Sevres, which was imposed upon the defeated Ottoman
Empire, required the Ottoman government to hand over to the Allied
Powers people accused of "massacres." Subsequently, 144 high Ottoman
officials were arrested and deported for trial by the British to the
island of Malta. The principal informants to the British High
Commission in Istanbul leading to the arrests were local Armenians and
the Armenian Patriarchate. While the deportees were interned on Malta,
the British appointed an Armenian scholar, Mr. Haig Khazarian, to
conduct a thorough examination of documentary evidence in the Ottoman,
British, and U.S. Archives to substantiate the charges. Access to
Ottoman records was unfettered as the British and French occupied and
controlled Istanbul at the time. Khazarian's corps of investigators
revealed an utter lack of evidence demonstrating that Ottoman officials
either sanctioned or encouraged killings of Armenians.

At the conclusion of the investigation, the British Procurator General
determined that it was "improbable that the charges would be capable of
proof in a court of law," exonerated and released all 144 detainees --
after two years and four months of detention without trial. No
compensation was ever paid to the detainees.

Despite the verdicts of the Malta Tribunals, Armenian terrorists have
engaged in a vigilante war that continues today.

In 1921, a secret Armenian network based in Boston, named Nemesis, took
the law into its own hands and hunted down and assassinated former
Ottoman Ministers Talaat Pasha and Jemal Pasha as well as other Ottoman
officials. Following in Nemesis' footsteps, during the 1970's and
1980's, the Armenian terrorist groups, Armenian Secret Army for the
Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and Justice Commandos for the Armenian
Genocide (JCAG), committed over 230 armed attacks, killing 71 innocent
people, including 31 Turkish diplomats, and seriously wounding over 520
people in a campaign of blood revenge.

Most recently, Mourad Topalian, former Chairman of the Armenian
National Committee of America, was tried and convicted in federal court
in Ohio of terrorist crimes associated with bombings in New York and
Los Angles and with the attempted assassination of the Turkish Honorary
Consul General in Philadelphia. The Armenian youths whom Topalian
directed and who conducted these attacks were recruited from the
Armenian Youth Federation and Armenian Revolution Federation in Boston.

The sole purpose of Armenian anti-Turkish hatred Inc. is to cover up
the dire circumstances that precipitated the enactment of a measure as
drastic as mass relocation. Armenians cooperated with Russian invaders
of Eastern Anatolia in wars in 1828, 1854, and 1877. Between 1893 and
1915 Ottoman Armenians in eastern Anatolia rebelled against their
government -- the Ottoman government of which Armenians held many, many
prominent and powerful positions-- and joined Armenian revolutionary
groups, such as the notorious Dashnaks and Hunchaks. They armed
themselves and spearheaded a massive Russian invasion of eastern
Anatolia. On November 5, 1914, the President of the Armenian National
Bureau in Tblisi declared to Czar Nicholas II, "From all countries
Armenians are hurrying to enter the ranks for the glorious Russian
Army, with their blood to serve the victory of Russian arms. ... Let
the Russian flag wave freely over the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus."
Armenian treason is also plainly documented in the November 1914 issue
of the Hunchak Armenian [Revolutionary] Gazette, published in Paris. In
a call to arms it exhorted:

"The entire Armenian Nation will join forces -- moral and material, and
waving the sword of Revolution, will enter this World conflict ... as
comrades in arms of the Triple Entente, and particularly Russia. They
will cooperate with the Allies, making full use of all political and
revolutionary means for the final victory...."

Boghos Nubar addressed a letter to the Times of London on January 30,
1919 confirming that the Armenians were indeed belligerents in World
War I. He stated with pride:

"In the Caucasus, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the
Russian armies, about 50,000 Armenian volunteers under Andranik,
Nazarbekoff, and others not only fought for four years for the cause of
the Entente, but after the breakdown of Russia they were the only
forces in the Caucasus to resist the advance of the Turks...."

One of those who answered the Armenian call to arms was Gourgen
Yanikian who, as a teenager, joined the Russians to fight the Ottoman
government, and who as an elderly man, on January 27, 1973,
assassinated two Turkish diplomats in Santa Barbara, California.

No logic can reconcile the two positions that Armenian Anti-Turkish
Hatred Inc. promotes. Eminent historian Bernard Lewis, speaking to the
Israeli daily Ha'aretz on January 23, 1998, expanded on this notion:

"The Armenians want to benefit from both worlds. On the one hand, they
speak with pride of their struggle against Ottoman despotism, while on
the other hand, they compare their tragedy to the Jewish Holocaust. I
do not accept this. I do not say that the Armenians did not suffer
terribly. But I find enough cause for me to contain their attempts to
use the Armenian massacres to diminish the worth of the Jewish
Holocaust and to relate to it instead as an ethnic dispute."
(translation)

None of the Ottoman orders commanding the relocation of Armenians,
which have been reviewed by historians to date, orders killings. To the
contrary, they order Ottoman officials to protect relocated Armenians.

Where Ottoman control was weakest Armenian relocatees suffered most.
The stories of the time give many examples of columns of hundreds of
Armenians guarded by as few as two Ottoman gendarmes. When local
Muslims attacked the columns, Armenians were robbed and killed. It must
be remembered that these Muslims had themselves suffered greatly at the
hands of Armenians and Russians. In the words of U.S. Ambassador Mark
Bristol, "While the Dashnaks [Armenian revolutionaries] were in power
they did everything in the world to keep the pot boiling by attacking
Kurds, Turks and Tartars; [and] by committing outrages against the
Moslems ...."

Armenian Anti-Turkish Hatred Inc. purports that the wartime propaganda
of the enemies of the Ottoman Empire constitutes objective evidence.
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, who is frequently quoted by Armenian
Americans, visited the Ottoman Empire with political, not humanitarian
aims. His correspondence with President Wilson reveals his intent was
to uncover or manufacture news that would goad the U.S. into joining
the war. Given that motive, Morgenthau sought to malign the Ottoman
Empire, an enemy of the Triple Entente. Morgenthau's research and
reporting relied in large part on politically motivated Armenians; his
primary aid, translator and confidant was Arshag Schmavonian, his
secretary was Hagop Andonian. Morgenthau openly professed that the
Turks were an inferior race and possessed "inferior blood." Thus, his
accounts can hardly be considered objective.

One ought to compare the wartime writings of Morgenthau and the
oft-cited Gen. J.G. Harbord to the post-war writings of Rear Admiral
Mark L. Bristol, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Turkey 1920 - 1926.
In a March 28, 1921 letter he writes:

"[R]eports are being freely circulated in the United States that the
Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in the Caucasus. Such reports
are repeated so many times it makes my blood boil. The Near East Relief
have the reports from Yarrow and our own American people which show
absolutely that such Armenian reports are absolutely false. The
circulation of such false reports in the United States, without
refutation, is an outrage and is certainly doing the Armenians more
harm than good. ... Why not tell the truth about the Armenians in every
way?"

Demographic studies prove that prior to World War I, fewer than 1.5
million Armenians lived in the entire Ottoman Empire. Thus, allegations
that more than 1.5 million Armenians from eastern Anatolia died is
false.

Figures reporting the total pre-World War I Armenian population vary
widely, with Armenian sources claiming far more than others. British,
French and Ottoman sources give figures of 1.05-1.50 million. Only
certain Armenian sources claim a pre-war population larger than 1.5
million. Comparing these to post-war figures yields a rough estimate of
losses. Historian and demographer, Dr. Justin McCarthy of the
University of Louisville, calculates the actual losses as slightly less
than 600,000. This figure agrees with those provided by British
historian Arnold Toynbee, by most early editions of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, and approximates the number given by Monseigneur Touchet, a
French missionary, who informed the Oeuvre d'Orient in February 1916
that the number of dead is thought to be 500,000. Boghos Nubar, head of
the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference in 1920, noted
the large numbers who survived the war. He declared that after the war
280,000 Armenians remained in the Anatolian portion of the occupied
Ottoman Empire while 700,000 Armenians had emigrated to other
countries.

Clearly then, a great portion of the Ottoman Armenians were not killed
as claimed by the Armenian Anti-Turkish Hatred Inc. and the 1.5 million
figure is gross and delibarate exaggeration. Each needless death is a
tragedy. Equally tragic are lies meant to inflame hatred by the
Armenian Anti-Turkish Hatred Inc.

Armenian losses were few in comparison to the over 2.5 million Muslim
dead from the same period. Reliable statistics demonstrate that
slightly less than 600,000 Anatolian Armenians died during the war
period of 1912-22. Armenians indeed suffered a terrible mortality. But
one must likewise consider the number of dead Muslims, Jews, Kurds and
other non-Armenains of Ottoman Eastern Anatolia who were murdered by
Armenian terrorists.

The statistics tell us that more than 2.5 million Anatolian Muslims
alone (Turks, Arabs, Kurds and others) perished in the hands of
Armenian terrorists. Thus, the years 1912-1922 constitute a horrible
period for humanity, not just for Armenians.

The numbers do not tell us the exact manner of death of the citizens of
Anatolia, regardless of ethnicity, who were caught up in both an
international war and an intercommunal struggle. Documents of the time
list intercommunal violence, forced migration of all ethnic groups,
disease, and, starvation as causes of death. Others died as a result of
the same war-induced causes that ravaged all peoples during the period.

The Ottoman Armenians openly agitated for a separate state in lands in
which they were numerically far inferior. The Hunchak and Dashnak
terrorist organizations, which survive to this day, were formed
expressly to agitate against the Ottoman government of which Armenians
were a powerful and influential part with many ministers, ambassadors,
generals, businessmen and other high and low level officials of
Armenian heritage. The Ottoman Armenians committed massacres against
Ottoman Muslims, Jews and other non-Armenians. During World War I,
Ottoman Armenians openly and with pride committed mass treason, took up
arms, traveled to Russia for training, and sported Russian uniforms.
Others, non-uniformed irregulars, operated against the Ottoman
government from behind the lines.

marktrivers

2/19/2005 5:47:00 PM

Terrorist Armenians raped, tortured, massacred millions of innocent and
defenceless Turks, Jews, Kurds, Arabs and other non-Armenians in
Ottoman Eastern Anatolia during WWI (with direct and generous support
from their allies, the victors of WWI including Czarist Russia which
also created the mess in the Middle East, including the fake state of
Iraq, millions of people are suffering from now) to ethnically cleanse
the area for an Armenian homeland which never existed.

The rest of the Ottoman Armenian population either very blindly
followed their terrorist leaders (who were ".. craven and mean-spirited
and exel in nothing except drinking." - Marco Polo), or remained
totally complacent.

Another thug of Armenian anti-Turkish Hatred Inc indicates the typical
Armenian behavior correctly:

"No sir, you will not find Armenians who will express disapproval or
distress for the assassination of Turkish governmental officials. It is
unfortunate that the attitude of the Turkish government vis-a-vis
Armenian demands dictates that more people have to die in pursuit of
justice. ... It is not uncommon to find those within the Armenian
diaspora who actually applaud these violent actions. "

David Davidian <dbd@urartu.SDPA.org> | The life of a people is a sea,
and
S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies | those that look at it from the
shore
P.O. Box 2761, Cambridge, MA 02238 | cannot know its depths.
->> Boston'dan Van'i istiyoruz <<- | -Armenian
proverb

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupe/eg/e...

The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question l. 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 Carrière
summarily dismisses it stating that "it depends entirely on information
provided by some Armenian historians, most of which was made up."

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 of Indo 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 of
Illyrians 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., "I 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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupe/eg/e...

The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 2. Did the Turks Take the Lands of the Armenians by Force?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The territory in which the Armenians lived together for a time never
was ruled by them as an independent, sovereign state. This territory
was ruled by others from the earliest times from which there is
evidence that Armenians lived there. From 521 to 344 B.C. it was a
province of Persia. From 334 to 215 B.C. it was part of the Macedonian
Empire. From 215 to 190 B.C. it was controlled by the Selephkites. From
190 until 220 A.D. it frequently changed hands between the Roman Empire
and the Parthians. From 220 until the start of the fifth century it was
a Sassanian province, and from then until the seventh century it
belonged to Byzantium. From the seventh to the tenth centuries it was
controlled by the Arabs. It returned again to Byzantine rule in the
tenth century and, finally, it came under the domination of the Turks
starting in the eleventh century.

The Armenians living in this territory who remained under the rule of
these various empires, could not continuously maintain any sort of
independent or unified Armenian state. At the most, a few Armenian
noble families dominated certain districts as feudal vassals of the
neighboring imperial suzerains, serving as buffers between the powerful
empires that surrounded them. Most of these Armenian "principalities"
were, thus, simply set up by local Armenian nobles within their own
feudal dominions, or by the neighboring empires, who in this way
secured their military services against their enemies. The best example
of this was the Baghratid family, long brought forward by Armenian
nationalist historians as an example of their historic independent
existence, which was in fact put in charge of its territory by the Arab
Caliphs. Some of the "Armenian" families which assumed the title of
principality at this time were, moreover, really Persian rather than
Armenian in origin. That they did not constitute any sort of
independent nation is shown in the statement of the Armenian historian
Kevork Aslan:

"The Armenians lived as local notables. They had no feeling of national
unity. There were no political bonds or ties among them. Their only
attachments were to the neighboring notables. Thus whatever national
feelings they had were local. "(2)

These Armenian principalities existed for centuries under the control
of various great empires and states, often changing sides to secure
maximum advantage, and thus earning for Armenians often caustic and
critical remarks from contemporary historians, as for example the Roman
historian Tacitus, who in his Annalium Iiber wrote:

"The Armenians change their position relating to Rome and the Persian
Empire, sometimes supporting one and sometimes the other, "

concluding that they are "a strange people."

It was as a result of these conditions, and then, the Armenians' lack
of unity and strength, their very failure to create a real state, their
weakness in relation to their neighbors, the fact that the territory in
which they lived was as a result the scene of constant conflict among
their more powerful suzerains from all sides, that they often were
deported, or moved voluntarily, from the lands where they first lived
when they appeared in history. Thus when they fled from the Persians
they settled in the area of Kayseri, in Central Anatolia. They were
deported by the Sassanians into central Iran, by the Arabs into Syria
and the Arabian Peninsula, by the Byzantines into Central Anatolia and
to Istanbul, Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary,
Transylvania and the Crimea. During the Crusades, they went to Cyprus,
Crete and Italy. In flight from the Mongols they settled in Kazan and
Astrakhan in Central Asia, and, finally, they were subsequently
deported by the Russians from the Crimea and the Caucasus into the
interior of Russia. As a result of these centuries-long deportations
and migrations, then, the Armenians were widely scattered from Sicily
to India and from the Crimea to Arabia, thus forming what they call
"the Armenian diaspora" centuries before they were deported by the
Ottomans in 1915.

The Armenians broke away from the Byzantine church in 451,150 years
after they accepted Christianity, leading to long centuries of
Armenian-Byzantine clashes which went on until the Turks settled in
Anatolia starting in the late 11th century, with the Byzantines working
to wipe out the Armenians and eliminate the Armenian principalities in
order to maintain Greek Orthodoxy throughout their dominions.
Contemporary Armenian historians report in great detail how the
Byzantines deported Armenians as well as using them against enemy
forces in the vanguard of the Byzantine armies. As a result of this,
when the Seljuk Turks started flooding into Anatolia starting in the
late 11th century, they did not encounter any Armenian principalities;
the only force remaining to resist them was that of Byzantium. The
Seljuk ruler Alparslan captured the lands of the Armenian Principality
of Ani in l064, but it had previously been brought to an end by the
Byzantine in 1045, nineteen years earlier, with Greeks being brought in
to replace the Armenians who had been deported. It is therefore false
to claim that the Seljuk Turks destroyed any Armenian principality, let
alone a state. This already had been done by the Byzantines, and it was
in fact the social and economic ferment that resulted which greatly
facilitated the subsequent Turkish settlement. Contemporary Armenian
historians interpret this Turkish conquest of Anatolia to have
constituted their liberation from the long centuries of Byzantine
misrule and oppression. The Armenian historian Asoghik thus reports
that "Because of the Armenians' enmity toward Byzantium, they welcomed
the Turkish entry into Anatolia and even helped them." The Armenian
historian Mathias of Edessa likewise relates that the Armenians
rejoiced and celebrated publicly when the Turks conquered his city,
Edessa (today's Urfa).

An Armenian principality did arise in Cilicia starting in 1080 but it
was the result, not of the Turkish settlement m Anatolia, as has been
claimed, but, rather, of the Byzantine destruction of the last Armenian
principalities in eastern Anatolia, which caused a flood of Armenians
fleeing into Cilicia. This principality maintained good relations with
the Turks even as it provided assistance to the Crusaders who passed
through its territory on their way to the Holy Land, while accepting
the suzerainty, first of Byzantium, and then after it declined, of the
Crusader Kingdoms, the Mongols, and, finally, the Catholic Lusignan
family which gained control of Cyprus. This sort of relationship with
"unbelievers", however, displeased the Gregorian Armenian church, with
the resulting internal divisions playing a significant role in the
Principality's conquest by the Mamluks of Syria and Egypt in 1375. In
the end, the most significant consequence of this last Armenian
principality was the establishment of a separate Armenian church from
the one centered at Echmiadzin, which added to the internal divisions
within Armenian Orthodoxy which remain important to the present day.

Thus when eastern Anatolia was conquered by Fatih Mehmet II and Yavuz
Sultan Selim I, it was taken from the White Sheep Turkomans and from
the Safavids of Iran, who had occupied it after- the Byzantines had
retired; while Yavuz Selim took Cilicia from the Mamluks. In no case,
therefore, did the Ottoman Turks conquer or occupy an existing Armenian
state or principality. In every case, these Armenians had previously
been conquered by peoples other than the Turks.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 3. Have the Turks Always Attacked and Misruled Armenians
Throught History?

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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 modern 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-education, 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 good will for Christians;
he has treated the sons of Jesus Christ very well, and he has given the
Armenian people affluence, peace, and happiness."

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 of zhimmi, 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 good will 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. 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 (Ötür), 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.

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 non-religious 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. 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 Farrére, Pierre Loti, Noguères Ilone
Caetani, Philip Marshall Brown, Michelet, Sir Charles Wilson, Politis,
Arnold, Bronsart, Roux, Grousset Edgar Granville Garnier, 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 Sebastiani replied that "The
Armenians are so content with their lives here that this is
impossible."

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 4. Did the Turks Really Try to Massacre the Armenians Starting
in the 1890's?

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The so-called "Armenian Question" is generally thought of as having
begun in the second half of the nineteenth century. One can easily
point to the Russo-Turkish war (1877 - 78) and the Congress of Berlin
(1878) which concluded the war as marking the emergence of this
question as a problem in Europe. In fact, however, one must really go
back to Russian activities in the East starting in the 1820's to
uncover its origins. Czarist Russia at the time was beginning a major
new imperial expansion across Central Asia, in the process overrunning
major Turkish Khanates in its push toward the borders of China and the
Pacific Ocean. At the same time, Russian imperial ambitions turned
southward as the Czars sought to gain control of Ottoman territory to
extend their landlocked empire to the Mediterranean and the open seas.
As an essential element of this ambition, Russia sought to undermine
Ottoman strength from within by stirring the national ambitions of the
Sultan's subject Christian peoples, in particular those with whom it
shared a common Orthodox religious heritage, the Greeks and the Slavs
in the Balkans and the Armenians. At the same time that Russian agents
fanned the fires of the Greek Revolution and stirred the beginnings of
Pan-Slavism in Serbia and Bulgaria, others moved into the Caucasus and
worked to secure Russian influence over the Catholicos of the Armenian
Gregorian church of Echmiadzin, to which most Ottoman Gregorians had
strong emotional attachments. The Russians used the Catholicos'
jealousy of the Istanbul Patriarch to gain his support to such an
extent that Catholicos Nerses Aratarakes himself led a force of 60,000
Armenians in support of the Russian army that fought Iran in the
Caucasus in 1827 -1828, in the process capturing most of Iran's
Caucasus possessions, including those areas where the Armenians lived.
This new Russian presence along the borders of eastern Anatolia,
combined with the support of the Catholicos, enabled them to extend
their influence among Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Russian pressure
in Istanbul finally got the Patriarch to add the Catholicos' name to
his daily prayers starting in 1844, furthering the latter's ability to
influence Ottoman Armenians in Russia's favor in the years that
followed. Most Ottoman Armenians were still too content with their lot
in the Sultan's dominions to be seriously influenced by this Russian
propaganda, but those who immigrated to Russian Armenia to join the
Russian effort against Ottoman stability and power. The lands that they
abandoned were turned over to Muslim refugees flooding into the Empire
from persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe. This led to serious land
disputes when many of the Armenian emigrants, or their descendants,
unhappy with life in Russia, sought to return to the Ottoman Empire in
the 1880's and 1890's.

The Russians were not the only foreign power seeking to protect-the
Ottoman Christians. England and France sponsored missionary activities
that converted many Armenians to Protestantism and Catholicism
respectively, leading to the creation of the Armenian Catholic Church
in Istanbul in l830 and the Protestant Church in 1847. However these
developments were not directly related to the development of the
"Armenian Question", except perhaps as indications of the rising
discontent within the Gregorian church which the Russians were seeking
to take advantage of in their own way.

On the other hand, the Reform Proclamation of 1856 was of major
importance. While not abolishing the separate millets and churches and
the institutions that they supported, the Ottoman government now
provided equal rights for all subjects regardless of their religion, in
the process seeking to eliminate all special privileges and
distinctions based on religion, and requiring the millets to
reconstitute their internal regulations in order to achieve these
goals. Insofar as the Armenians were concerned, the result was the
Armenian Millet Regulation, drawn up by the Patriarchate and put into
force by the Ottoman government on 29 March 1862. Of particular
importance the new regulation placed the Armenian millet under the
government of a council of 140 members, including only 20 churchmen
from the Istanbul Patriarchate, while 80 secular representatives were
to be chosen from the Istanbul community and 40 members from the
provinces. The Reform Proclamation of 1856 led England and France to be
more interested in Armenians which in return intensified the interests
of Russia in the same ethnic group. Their concern was based on their
own imperialist interests rather than their affection for Armenians.
Russia now sought to gain Armenian support for undermining and
destroying the Ottoman state by promising to create a "Greater Armenia"
in eastern Anatolia, which would include substantially more territory
between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean than the Armenians ever had
ruled or even occupied at any time in their history.

It was against this background that the Ottoman-Russian war (1877 - 78)
awakened Armenian dreams for independence with Russian help and under
Russian guidance. Toward the end of the war, the Armenian Patriarch of
Istanbul, Nerses Varjabedian, got in touch with the Russian Czar with
the help of the Catholicos of Echmiadzin, asking Russia not to return
to the Ottomans the east Anatolian lands occupied by Russian forces.
Immediately after the war, the Patriarch went to the Russian camp,
which by then was at San Stephano, immediately outside Istanbul, and in
an interview with the Russian Commander, Grand Duke Nicholas, asked
that all of Eastern Anatolia be annexed to Russia and established as an
autonomous Armenian state, very much like the regime then being
established for Bulgaria, but that if this was not possible, and the
lands in question had to be returned to the Ottomans, at least Russian
forces should not be withdrawn until changes favoring the Armenians
were introduced into the governmental and administrative organization
and regulations of these provinces. The Russians agreed to the latter
proposal, which was incorporated as Article 16 of the 'Treaty of San
Stephano. Even as the negotiations were going on at San Stephano,
moreover, the Armenian officers in the Russian army worked frantically
to stir discontent among the Ottoman Armenians, urging them to work to
gain "the same sort of independence for themselves as that secured by
the Christians of the Balkans." This appeal gained considerable
influence among the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia long after the
Russian forces were withdrawn.

The Treaty of San Stephano did not, however, constitute the final
settlement of the Russo-Turkish war. Britain rightly feared that its
provisions for a Greater Armenia in the East would inevitably not only
establish Russian hegemony in those areas but also, and even more
dangerous, in the Ottoman Empire, and through "Greater Armenia" to the
Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, where they could easily threaten the
British possessions in India. In return for an Ottoman agreement for
British occupation of Cyprus, therefore, to enable it to counter any
Russian threats in Eastern Anatolia, Britain agreed to use its
influence in Europe to upset the provisions of San Stephano, arranging
the Congress of Berlin to this end. As a result of its deliberations,
Russia was compelled to evacuate all of Eastern Anatolia with the
exception of the districts of Kars, Ardahan and Batum, with the
Ottomans agreeing to institute "reforms" in the eastern provinces where
Armenians lived under the guarantee of the five signatory European
powers. From this time onward, England in particular came to consider
the "Armenian Question" as its own particular problem, and to regularly
intervene to secure its solution according to its own ideas.

A committee sent by the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul attended the
Congress of Berlin, but it was so unhappy at the final treaty and the
Powers' failure to accept its demands that it returned to Istanbul with
the feeling that "nothing will be achieved except by means of struggle
and revolution." Russia also emerged from the Congress without having
achieved its major objectives, and with both Greece, and Bulgaria being
left under British influence. It therefore renewed with increased vigor
its effort to secure control of Eastern Anatolia, again seeking to use
the Armenians as a major instrument of its policy. Now, however, it was
resisted in this effort by the British, who also sought to influence
and use the Armenians by stirring their national ambitions, though in
this respect, in the words of the French writer Rene Pinon, who is in
fact known with his pro-Armenian views, "Armenia in British hands would
become a police station against Russian expansion." Whether under
Russian or British influence, however, the Armenians became pawns to
advance imperial ambitions at Ottoman expense.

It had been British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and the Tories who
had defended Ottoman integrity against Russian expansion at the
Congress of Berlin. But with the assumption of power by William E.
Gladstone and the Liberals in I880, British policy toward the Ottomans
changed drastically to one which sought to protect British interests by
breaking up the Ottoman Empire and creating friendly small states under
British influence in its place, one of which was to be Armenia. In
pursuit of this policy, the British press now was encouraged to refer
to eastern Anatolia as "Armenia"; British consulates were opened in
every corner of the area to provide opportunities for contact with the
local Christian population; the numbers of Protestant missionaries sent
to the East was substantially increased; and in London an
Anglo-Armenian Friendship Committee was created to influence public
opinion in support of this new endeavour. The way how Russia and Great
Britain used Armenians as a tool for their own ambitions has been
adequately documented by numerous Armenian and other foreign sources.
Thus, the French Ambassador in Istanbul Paul Cambon reported to the
Quai d'Orsay in 1894 that "Gladstone is organizing the dissatisfied
Armenians, putting them under discipline and promising them assistance,
settling many of them in London with the inspiration of the propaganda
committee." Edgar Granville commended that "There was no Armenian
movement in Ottoman territory before the Russians stirred them up.
Innocent people are going to be hurt because of this dream of a Greater
Armenia under the protection of the Czar," and "the Armenian movements
intend to attach Eastern Anatolia to Russia." The Armenian writer
Kaprielian declared proudly in his book "The Armenian Crisis and
Rebirth that "the revolutionary promises and inspirations were owed to
Russia." The Dashnak newspaper Hairenik in its issue of 28 June 1918
stated that "The awakening of a revolutionary spirit among the
Armenians in Turkey was the result of Russian stimulation." The
Armenian Patriarch Horen Ashikian wrote in his History of Armenia "The
protestant missionaries distributed in large numbers to various places
in Turkey made propaganda in favor of England and stirred the Armenians
to desire autonomy under British protection. The schools that they
established were the nurseries of their secret plans." And the Armenian
religious leader Hrant Vartabed wrote that "'The establishment of
protestant communities in Ottoman territory and their protection by
England and the United States shows that they did not shrink from
exploiting even the most sacred feelings of the West, religious
feelings, in seeking civilization", going on to state that the
Catholicos of Echmiadzin Kevork V was a tool of Czarist Russia and that
he betrayed the Armenians of Anatolia.

In pursuit of these policies, starting in 1880 a number of Armenian
revolutionary societies were established in Eastern Anatolia, the Black
Cross and Armenian societies in Van and the National Guards in Erzurum.
However these societies had little influence, since the Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire still lived in peace and prosperity and had no real
complaints against Ottoman administration. With the passage of time,
therefore, these and other such Armenian societies within the Empire
fell into inactivity and largely ceased operations. The Armenian
nationalists therefore moved to center their organizations outside
Ottoman territory, establishing the Hunchak Committee at Geneva in 1887
and the Dashnak Committee at Tiflis in 1890, both of which declared to
be their basic goal the "liberation" from Ottoman rule of the
territories of Eastern Anatolia and the Ottoman Armenians.

According to Louise Nalbandian, a leading Armenian researcher into
Armenian propaganda, the Hunchak program stated that:

"Agitation and terror were needed to "elevate the spirit" of the
people. The people were also to be incited against their enemies and
were to "profit" from retaliatory actions of these same enemies. Terror
was to be used as a method of protecting the people and winning their
confidence in the Hunchak program. The party aimed at terrorizing the
Ottoman government, thus contributing toward lowering the prestige of
that regime and working toward its complete disintegration. The
government itself was not to be the only focus of terroristic tactics.
The Hunchaks wanted to annihilate the most dangerous of the Armenian
and Turkish individuals who were then working for the government as
well as to destroy all spies and informers. To assist them in carrying
out all of these terroristic acts, the party was to organize an
exclusive branch specifically devoted to performing acts of terrorism.
The most opportune time to institute the general rebellion for carrying
out immediate objectives was when Turkey was engaged in war. "

K. S. Papazian wrote of the Dashnak Society:

"The purpose of the A. R. Federation (Dashnak) is to-achieve political
and economic freedom in Turkish Armenia, by means of rebellion ...
terrorism has, from the first, been adopted by the Dashnak Committee of
the Caucasus, as a policy or a method for achieving its ends. Under the
heading "means" in their program adopted in 1892, we read as follows:
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak), in order to achieve
its purpose through rebellion, organizes revolutionary groups. Method
no. 8 is as follows: To wage fight, and to subject to terrorism the
Government officials, the traitors, ... Method no.11 is: To subject the
government institutions to destruction and pillage. "

One of the Dashnak founders and ideologues, Dr. Jean Loris-Melikoff
wrote that:

"The truth is that the party (Dashnak Committee) was ruled by an
oligarchy, for whom the particular interests of the party came before
the interests of the people and nation.. They (the Dashnaks) made
collections among the bourgeois and the great merchants. A t the end,
when these means were exhausted, they resorted to terrorism, after the
teachings of the Russian revolutionaries that the end justifies the
means. "

The same policy was described by .the Dashnak ideologue Varandian, in
History of the Dashnakzoutune (Paris, 1932).

Thus as Armenian writers themselves have freely admitted, the goal of
their revolutionary societies was to stir revolution, and their method
was terror. They lost no time in putting their programs into operation,
stirring a number of revolt efforts within a short time, with the
Hunches taking the lead at first, and then the Dashnaks following,
planning and organizing their efforts outside the Ottoman Empire before
carrying them out within the boundaries of the Sultan's dominions.

The first revolt came at Erzurum in 1890. It was followed by the
Kumkapi riots in Istanbul the same year, and then risings in Kayseri,
Yozgat, Çorum and Merzifon in 1892 - 1893, in Sasun in 1894, the
Zeytun revolt and the Armenian raid on the Sublime Porte in 1895, the
Van revolt and occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul in 1896, the
Second Sasun revolt in 1903, the attempted assassination of Sultan
Abdulhamid II in 1905, and the Adana revolt in 1909. All these revolts
and riots were presented by the Armenian revolutionary societies in
Europe and America as the killing of Armenians by Turks, and with this
sort of propaganda message they stirred considerable emotion among
Christian peoples. The missionaries and consular representatives sent
by the Powers to Anatolia played major roles in spreading this
propaganda in the western press, thus carrying out the aims of the
western powers to turn public opinion against Muslims and Turks to gain
the necessary support to break up the Ottoman Empire.

There were many honest western diplomatic and consular representatives
who reported what actually was happening, that it was the Armenian
revolutionary societies that were doing the revolting and slaughtering
and massacring to secure European intervention in their behalf.

In 1876, the British Ambassador in Istanbul reported that the Armenian
Patriarch had said to him:

"If revolution is necessary to attract the attention and intervention
of Europe, it would not be hard to do so. "

On 28 March 1894 the British Ambassador in Istanbul, Curie reported to
the Foreign Office:

"The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries is to stir disturbances, to
get the Ottomans to react to violence, and thus get the foreign Powers
to intervene. "

On 28 January 1895 the British Consul in Erzurum, Graves reported to
the British Ambassador in Istanbul:

"The aims of the revolutionary committees are to stir up general
discontent and to get the Turkish government and people to react with
violence, thus attracting the attention of the foreign powers to the
imagined sufferings of the Armenian people, and getting them to act to
correct the situation. "

Graves also told New York Herald reporter Sydney Whitman that:

"If no Armenian revolutionary had come to this country, if they had not
stirred Armenian revolution, would these clashes have occurred ",
answering "Of course not. I doubt if a single Armenian would have been
killed. "

The British Vice-Consul Williams wrote from Van on 4 March 1896:

"The Dashnaks and Hunchaks have terrorized their own countrymen, they
have stirred up the Muslim people with their thefts and insanities, and
have paralyzed all efforts made to carry out reforms; all the events
that have taken place in Anatolia are the responsibility of the crimes
committed by the Armenian revolutionary committees. "

British Consul General in Adana Doughty Wily wrote in 1909 "The
Armenians are working to secure foreign intervention." Russian Consul
General in Bitlis and Van; General Mayewski, reported in 1912:

"In 1895 and 1896 the Armenian revolutionary committees created such
suspicion between the Armenians and the native population that it
became impossible to implement any sort of reform in these districts.
The Armenian priests paid no attention to religious education, but
instead concentrated on spreading nationalist ideas, which were affixed
to the walls of monasteries, and in place of performing their religious
duties they concentrated on stirring Christian enmity against Muslims.
The revolts that took place in many provinces of Turkey during 1895 and
1896 were caused neither by any great poverty among the Armenian
villages nor because of Muslim attacks against them. In fact these
villagers were considerably richer and more prosperous than their
neighbors. Rather, the Armenian revolts came from three causes:

1. Their increasing maturity in political subjects;

2.The spread of ideas of nationality, liberation, and independence
within the Armenian community;

3.Support of these ideas by the western governments, and their
encouragement through the efforts of the Armenian priests. "

In another report in December 1912, Mayewski wrote that:

"The Dashnak revolutionary society is working to stir up a situation in
which Muslims and Armenians will attack each other, and to thus pave
the way for Russian intervention. "

Finally, the Dashnak ideologue Varandian admits that the society
"wanted to assure European intervention," while Papazian stated that
"the aims of their revolts was to assure that the European powers would
mix into Ottoman internal affairs." At each of their armed revolts the
Armenian terrorist committees have always propagated that European
intervention would immediately follow. Even some of the committee
members believed in this propaganda. In fact, during the occupation of
the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul the Armenian terrorist Armen Aknomi
committed suicide after having waited in desperation the arrival of the
British fleet. It can be seen thus that the basis for the Armenian
revolts was not poverty, nor was it oppression or the desire for
reform; rather, it was simply the result of a joint effort on the part
of the Armenian revolutionary committees and the Armenian church, in
conjunction with the Western Powers and Russia, to provide the basis to
break up the Ottoman Empire.

In reaction to these revolts, the Ottomans did what other states did in
such circumstances, sending armed forces against the rebels to restore
order, and for the most part succeeding quickly since very few of the
Armenian populace supported or helped the rebels or the revolutionary
societies. However for the press and public of Europe, stirred by tales
spread by the missionaries and the revolutionary societies themselves,
every Ottoman restoration of order was automatically considered a
"massacre" of Christians, with the thousands of slaughtered Muslims
being ignored and Christian claims against Muslims automatically
accepted. In many cases, the European states not only intervened to
prevent the Ottomans from restoring order, but also secured the release
of many captured terrorists, including those involved in the Zeytun
revolt, the occupation of the Ottoman Bank, and the attempted
assassination of Sultan Abdulhamid. While most of these were expelled
from the Ottoman Empire, with the cooperation of their European
sponsors, it did not take long for them to secure forged passports and
other documents and to return to Ottoman territory to resume their
terroristic activities. Whatever were the claims of the Armenian
revolutionary societies and whatever the ambitions of the imperial
powers of Europe, there was one major fact which they simply could not
ignore. The Armenians comprised a very small minority of the population
in the territories being claimed in their name, namely the six eastern
districts claimed as "historic Armenia" (Erzurum, Bitlis, Van, Elaziz,
Diyarbakir and Sivas), the two provinces claimed to comprise "Armenian
Cilicia" (Aleppo and Adana) and finally Trabzon which was later claimed
to have an outlet to the Black Sea coast. Event the French Yellow Book,
which among western sources made the largest Armenian population
claims, still showed them in a sizeable minority:

Total Population Gregorian Armenian Population Armenian Percent
of Total Population
Erzurum 645,702 134,967 20.90
Bitlis 398,625 131,390 32.96
Van 430,000 80,798 18.79
Elaziz 578,814 69,718 12.04
Diyarbakir 471,462 79,129 16.78
Sivas 1,086,015 170,433 15.68
Adana 403,539 97,450 24.14
Aleppo 995,758 37,999 3.81
Trabzon 1,047,700 47,200 4.50

Thus even by these extreme claims, the Armenians still constituted no
more than one third of the provinces' population. According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica of 1910, the Armenians were only 15 percent of
the area's population as a whole, making it very unlikely that they
could in fact achieve independence in any part of the Ottoman Empire
without the massive foreign assistance that would have been required to
push out the Turkish majorities and replace them with Armenian
emigrants.

Russia in fact was only using the Armenians for its own ends. It had no
real intention of establishing Armenian independence, either within its
own dominions or in Ottoman territory. Almost as soon as the Russians
took over the Caucasus, they adopted a policy of Russifying the
Armenians as well as establishing their own control over the Armenian
Gregorian church in their territory. By virture of the Polijenia Law of
1836, the powers and duties of the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin were
restricted, while his appointment was to be made by the Czar. In 1882
all Armenian newspapers and schools in the Russian Empire were closed,
and in l903 the state took direct control of all the financial
resources of the Armenian Church as well as Armenian establishments and
schools. At the same time Russian Foreign Minister Lobanov-Rostowsky
adopted his famous goal of "An Armenia without Armenians", a slogan
which has been deliberately attributed to the Ottoman administration by
some Armenian propagandists and writers in recent years. Whatever the
reason, Russian oppression of the Armenians was severe. The Armenian
historian Vartanian relates in his History of the Armenian Movement
that "Ottoman Armenia was completely free in its traditions, religion,
culture and language in comparison to Russian Armenia under the Czars."
Edgar Granville writes, "The Ottoman Empire was the Armenians' only
shelter against Russian oppression."

That Russian intentions were to use the Armenians to annex Eastern
Anatolia and not to create an independent Armenia is shown by what
happened during World War I. In the secret agreements made among the
Entente powers to divide the Ottoman Empire, the territory which the
Russians had promised to the Armenians as an autonomous or independent
territory was summarily divided between Russia and France without any
mention of the Armenians, while the Czar replied to the protests of the
Catholicos of Etchmiadzin only that "Russia has no Armenian problem."
The Armenian writer Borian thus concludes:

"Czarist Russia at no time wanted to assure Armenian autonomy: For this
reason one must consider the Armenians who were working for Armenian
autonomy as no more than agents of the Czar to attach Eastern Anatolia
to Russia. "

The Russians thus have deceived the Armenians for years; and as a
result the Armenians have been left with nothing more than an empty
dream.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 5. What is Meant by the Term "Genocide"?

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This term refers to a well defined crime, the definition of which has
been given in an international convention made after the Second World
War: the "Convention for the Prevention and the Repression of the Crime
of Genocide", approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in
its resolution of December 9,1948 and which went into effect on January
11, 1951, convention which Turkey signed and ratified.

In the convention the definition of the crime of genocide consists of
three elements: for one thing, there has to be a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group. Then, this group has to be subject to
certain acts listed in the convention. The "murder of the members of
the group, and forced transfer of the children of one group into
another group and subjecting the members of a group to conditions which
will eventually bring about their physical destruction" come within the
range of actions listed in the said convention. But the third element
is the most important: there has to be "an intent of destroying", in
part or in whole the said group.

This key-description helps to differentiate between genocide and other
forms of homicide, which are the consequences of other motives such as
in the case of wars, uprisings etc. Homicide becomes genocide when the
latent or apparent intention of physical destruction is directed at
members of any one of the national, ethnic, racial or religious groups
simply because they happen to be members of that group. The concept of
numbers only becomes significant when it can be taken as sign of such
an intention against the group. That is why, as Sartre said in speaking
of genocide on the occasion of the Russell Tribunal on the Vietnam War,
that one must study the facts objectively in order to prove if this
intention exists, even in an implicit manner.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 6. Did the Turks Undertake a Planned and Systematic Massacre
of the Armenians in 1915?

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The beginning of World War I and the Ottoman entry into the war on
November l, 1914 on the side of Germany and Austria - Hungary against
the Entente powers was considered as a great opportunity by the
Armenian nationalists. Louise Nalbandian relates that "The Armenian
revolutionary committees considered that the most opportune time to
begin a general uprising to achieve their goals was when the Ottoman
Empire was in a state of war", and thus less able to resist an internal
attack.

Even before the war began, in August 1914, the Ottoman leaders met with
the Dashnaks at Erzurum in the hope of getting them to support the
Ottoman war effort when it came. The Dashnaks promised that if the
Ottomans entered the war, they would do their duty as loyal countrymen
in the Ottoman armies. However they failed to live up to this promise,
since even before this meeting took place, a secret Dashnak Congress
held at Erzurum in June 1914 had already decided to use the oncoming
war to undertake a general attack against the Ottoman state. The
Russian Armenians joined the Russian army in preparing an attack on the
Ottomans as soon as war was declared. The Catholicos of Echmiadzin
assured the Russian General Governor of the Caucasus, Vranzof-Dashkof,
that "in return for Russia's forcing the Ottomans to make reforms for
the Armenians, all the Russian Armenians would support the Russian war
effort without conditions." The Catholicos subsequently was received at
Tiflis by the Czar, whom he told that "The liberation of the Armenians
in Anatolia would lead to the establishment of an autonomous Armenia
separated from Turkish suzerainty and that this Armenia could be made
possible with the protection of Russia." Of course the Russians really
intended to use the Armenians to annex Eastern Anatolia, but the
Catholicos was told nothing about that.

As soon as Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire, the Dashnak
Society's official organ Horizon declared:

"The Armenians have taken their place on the side of the Entente states
without showing any hesitation whatsoever; they have placed all their
forces at the disposition of Russia; and they also are forming
volunteer battalions. "

The Dashnak Committee also ordered its cells that had been preparing to
revolt within the Ottoman Empire:

"As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman
armies have started to retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The
Ottoman armies thus will be placed between two fires: of the Ottoman
armies advance against the Russians, on the other hand, their Armenian
soldiers should leave their units with their weapons, form bandit
forces, and unite with the Russians. "

The Hunchak Committee instructions to its organizations in the Ottoman
territory were:

"The Hunchak Committee will use all means to assist the Entente states,
devoting all its forces to the struggle to assure victory in Armenia,
Cilicia, the Caucasus and Azerbaijan as the ally of the Entente states,
and in particular of Russia. "

And even the Armenian representative in the Ottoman Parliament for Van,
Papazyan, soon turned out to be a leading guerilla fighter against the
Ottomans, publishing a proclamation that:

"The volunteer Armenian regiments in the Caucasus should prepare
themselves for battle, serve as advance units for the Russian armies to
help them capture the key positions in the districts Where the
Armenians live, and advance into Anatolia, joining the Armenian units
already there."

As the Russian forces advanced into Ottoman territory in eastern
Anatolia, they were led by advanced units composed of volunteer Ottoman
and Russian Armenians, who were joined by the Armenians who deserted
the Ottoman armies and went over to the Russians. Many of these also
formed bandit forces with weapons and ammunition which they had for
years been stocking in Armenian and missionary churches and schools,
going on to raid Ottoman supply depots both to increase their own arms
and to deny them to the Ottoman army as it moved to meet this massive
Russian invasion. Within a few months after the war began, these
Armenian guerilla forces, operating in close coordination with the
Russians, were savagely attacking Turkish cities, towns and villages in
the East; massacring their inhabitants without mercy, while at the same
time working to sabotage the Ottoman army's war effort by destroying
roads and bridges, raiding caravans, and doing whatever else they could
to ease the Russian occupation. The atrocities committed by the
Armenian volunteer forces accompanying the Russian army were so severe
that the Russian commanders themselves were compelled to withdraw them
from the fighting fronts and send them to rear guard duties. The
memoirs of all too many Russian officers who served in the East at this
time are filled with accounts of the revolting atrocities committed by
these Armenian guerillas, which were savage even by the relatively
primitive standards of war then observed in such areas.

Nor did these Armenian atrocities effect only Turks and other Muslims.
The Armenian guerillas had never been happy with the failure of the
Greeks and Jews to fully support their revolutionary programs. As a
result in Trabzon and vicinity they massacred thousands of Greeks,
while in the area of Hakkari it was the Jews who were rounded up and
massacred by the Armenian guerillas. Basically the aim of these
atrocities was to leave only Armenians in the territories being claimed
for the new Armenian state; all others therefore were massacred or
forced to flee for their lives so as to secure the desired Armenian
majority of the population in preparation for the peace settlement.

Leading the first Armenian units who crossed the Ottoman border in the
company of the Russian invaders was the former Ottoman Parliamentary
representative for Erzurum, Karekin Pastirmaciyan, who now assumed the
revolutionary name Armen Garo. Another former Ottoman parliamentarian,
Hamparsum Boyaciyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces who ravaged
Turkish villages behind the lines under the nickname "Murad",
specifically ordering that "Turkish children also should be killed as
they form a danger to the Armenian nation." Another former Member of
Parliament, Papazyan, led the Armenian guerilla forces that ravaged the
areas of Van, Bitlis and Mush.

In March 1915 the Russian forces began to move toward Van. Immediately,
on April 11,1915 the Armenians of Van began a general revolt,
massacring all the Turks in the vicinity so as to make possible its
quick and easy conquest by the Russians. Little wonder that Czar
Nicholas II sent a telegram of thanks to the Armenian Revolutionary
Committee of Van on April 21,1915, "thanking it for its services to
Russia." .The Armenian newspaper Gochnak, published in the United
States, also proudly reported on May 24,1915 that "only, 1,500 Turks
remain in Van", the rest having been slaughtered.

The Dashnak representative told the Armenian National Congress
assembled at Tiflis in February 1915 that "Russia provided 242,000
rubles before the war even began to arm and prepare the Ottoman
Armenians to undertake revolts", giving some idea of how the
Russian-Armenian alliance had long prepared to undermine the Ottoman
war effort. Under these circumstances, with the Russians advancing
along a wide front in the East, with the Armenian guerillas spreading
death and destruction while at the same time attacking the Ottoman
armies from the rear, with the Allies also invading the Empire along a
wide front from Galicia to Irak, the Ottoman decision to deport
Armenians from the war areas was a moderate and entirely legitimate
measure of self defense.

Even after the revolt and massacres at Van, the Ottoman government made
one final effort to secure general Armenian support for the war effort,
summoning the Patriarch, some Armenian Members of Parliament, and other
delegates to a meeting where they were warned that drastic measures
would be taken unless Armenians stopped slaughtering Muslims and
working to undermine the war effort. When there was no evident
lessening of the Armenian attacks, the government finally acted. On
April 24,1915 the Armenian revolutionary committees were closed and 235
of their leaders were arrested for activities against the state. It is
the date of these arrests that in recent years has been annually
commemorated by Armenian nationalist groups throughout the world in
commemoration of the "massacre" that they claim took place at this
time. No such massacre, however, took place, at this or any other time
during the war: In the face of the great dangers which the Empire faced
at that time, great care was taken. to make certain that the Armenians
were treated carefully and compassionately as they were deported,
generally to Syria and Palestine when they came from southern Anatolia,
and to Irak if they came from the north. The Ottoman Council of
Ministers thus ordered :

"When those of the Armenians resident in the aforementioned towns and
villages who have to be moved are transferred to their places of
settlement and are on the road, their comfort must be assured and their
lives and property protected; after their arrival their food should be
paid for out of Refugees' Appropriations until they are definitively
settled in their new homes. Property and land should be distributed to
them in accordance with their previous financial situation as well as
their current needs; and for those among them needing further help, the
government should build houses, provide cultivators and artisans with
seed, tools, and equipment. "

And it went on to specify :

"This order is entirely intended against the extension of the Armenian
Revolutionary Committees; therefore do not execute it in such a manner
that might cause the mutual massacre of Muslims and Armenians. "

"Make arrangements for special officials to accompany the groups of
Armenians who are being relocated, and make sure they are provided with
food and other needed things, paying the cost out of the allotments set
aside for emigrants. "

"The food needed by the emigrants while travelling until they reach
their destinations must be provided ... for poor emigrants by credit
for the installation of the emigrants. The camps provided for
transported persons should be kept under regular supervision; necessary
steps for their well being should be taken, and order and security
assured Make certain that indigent emigrants are given enough food and
that their health is assured by daily visits by a doctor... Sick
people, poor people, women and children should be sent by rail, and
others on mules, in carts or on foot according to their power of
endurance. Each convoy should be accompanied by a detachment of guards,
and the food supply for each Coney should be guarded until the
destination is reached... In cases where the emigrants are attacked,
either in the camps or during the journeys, all efforts should bc taken
to repel the attacks immediately... "

Out of the some 700,000 Armenians who were transported in this way
until early 1917, certainly some lives were lost, as the result both of
large scale military and bandit activities then going on in the areas
through which they passed, as well as the general insecurity and blood
feuds which some tribal forces sought to carry out as the caravans
passed through their territories. In addition, the deportations and
settlement of the deported Armenians took place at a time when the
Empire was suffering from severe shortages of fuel, food, medicine and
other supplies as well as large-scale plague and famine. It should not
be forgotten that, at the same time, an entire Ottoman army of 90,000
men was lost in the East as a result of severe shortages, or that
through the remainder of the war as many as three or four million
Ottoman subjects of all religions died as a result of the same
conditions that afflicted the deportees. How tragic and unfeeling it
is, therefore, for Armenian nationalists to blame the undoubted
suffering of the Armenians during the war to something more than the
same anarchical conditions which afflicted all the Sultan's subjects.
This is the truth behind the false claims distorting historical facts
by ill-devised mottoes such as the "first genocide of the twentieth
century" which Armenian propagandists and terror groups try to revive
to justify the same tactics of terror today which brought ù such
horrors to the Ottoman Empire during the last century.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 7. Did Talat Pasha Send Secret Telegrams Ordering Massacres?

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Armenian propaganda claiming that massacres were an Ottoman government
policy requires proof that such a decision was in fact made. For this
purpose the Armenians reduced a number of telegrams attributed to Talat
Pasha supposedly found by British forces commanded by General Allenby
when they captured Aleppo in 1918. It was claimed that they were found
in the office of an Ottoman official named Naim Bey, and that they were
not destroyed only because the British occupation came with unexpected
speed. Samples of these telegrams were published in Paris in l920 by an
Armenian author named Aram Andonian, and they also were presented at
the Berlin trial of the Armenian terrorist Tehlirian, who killed Talat
Pasha. Nevertheless, the court neither considered these documents as
"evidence" nor was involved in any decision claiming the authenticity
of them.

These documents were, however, entirely fabricated, and the claims
deriving from them therefore cannot be sustained. They were in fact
published by the Daily Telegraph of London in 1922, which also
attributed them to a discovery made by Allenby's army. But when the
British Foreign Office enquired about them at the War Office, and with
Allenby himself, it was discovered that they had not been discovered by
the British army but, rather, had been produced by an Armenian group in
Paris. In addition, examination of the photographs provided in the
Andonian volume shows clearly that neither in form, script or
phraseology did they resemble normal Ottoman administrative documents,
and that they were, therefore, rather crude forgeries.

Following the Entente occupation of Istanbul, the British and the
French arrested a number of Ottoman political and military figures and
some intellectuals on charges of war crimes. In this they were given
substantial assistance by the Ottoman Liberal Union Party, which had
been placed in power by the Sultan after the war, and which was anxious
to do anything it could to definitively destroy the Union and Progress
Party and its leaders, who had long been political enemies. Most of the
prisoners were sent off to imprisonment in Malta, but the four Union
and Progress leaders who had fled the country just before the
occupation were tried and sentenced to death in absentia in Istanbul.
Three other Government officials were sentenced to death and executed,
but it was discovered later that the evidence on which the convictions
had been based was false.

In the meantime, the British looked everywhere to find evidence against
those who had been sent to Malta. Despite the complete cooperation of
the Ottoman Liberal Union government, nothing incriminating could be
found among the Ottoman government documents. Similar searches in the
British archives were fruitless. Finally, in desperation, the British
Foreign Office turned to the American archives in Washington, but in
reply, one of their representatives, R. C. Craigie, wrote to Lord
Curzon:

"I regret to inform your Lordship that there was nothing therein which
could be used as evidence against the Turks who are at present being
detained at Malta ... no concrete facts being given which could
constitute satisfactory incriminating evidence.... The reports in
question do not appear in any case to contain evidence against these
Turks which would be useful even for the purpose of corroborating
information already in the possession of His Majesty's Government.."

Uncertain as to what should be done with prisoners, who already had
been held for two years, without trial, and without even any charges
being filed or evidence produced, the Foreign Office applied for advice
to the Law Officers of the Crown in London, who concluded on 29 July,
1921:

"Up to the present no statements have been taken from witnesses who can
depose to the truth of the charges made against the prisoners. It is
indeed uncertain whether any witnesses can be found.

At this time the "documents" produced by Andonian were available, but
despite their desperate search for evidence which could be presented in
a court of law, the British never used them because it was evident that
they were forgeries. As a result, the prisoners were quietly released
in 1921, without charges ever having been filed or evidence produced.

It is useful to reiterate the main elements in the chain of evidence
constructed in proving that Andonian's "documents" were all patent
forgeries:

To show that his forgeries were in fact "authentic Ottoman documents"
Andonian relied on the signature of the Governor of Aleppo, Mustafa
Abdülhalik Bey, which he claimed was appended to several of the
"documents" in question. By examining several actual specimens of
Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey's signature as preserved on contemporary
official documents, it is established that the alleged signatures
appended to Andonian's "documents" were forgeries.
In one of his forged documents, Andonian dated the note and signature
attributed to Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey. Again, by a comparison with
authentic correspondence between the Governor of Aleppo and the
Ministry of the Interior in Istanbul, on the date in question, it is
proven that the Governor of Aleppo on that date was Bekir Sami Bey, not
Mustafa Abdülhalik Bey:

Consistently, Andonian's forgeries attest to the fact that he was
either totally unaware of, or carelessly neglected to account for, the
differences between the Muslim Rumi and Christian calendars. The
numerous errors he made as a result of this oversight are, in and of
themselves, sufficient to prove the fabricated nature of his
"documents". Among other things, the errors Andonian made in this
respect served to destroy the system of reference numbers and dates
that he concocted for his "documents".
By way of a detailed comparison of the entries made in the Ministry of
the Interior's Registers of outgoing Ciphers, wherein are recorded the
date and reference number of every ciphered communication sent out by
the Ministry, with the dates and reference numbers placed by Andonian
on his forgeries, it is proven that his so-called "ciphered telegrams"
bear no relationship whatsoever to the actual ciphers sent by the
Ministry to Aleppo in the period in question.
Again, by comparing the Turkish "originals" of Andonian's "ciphered
telegrams" with actual examples of contemporary Ottoman ciphered
messages, it is shown that the number groupings he employed bear no
relationship to the actual ciphers the Ottomans were using in that
period. Thus, in his attempt to make his forgeries appear credible, he
created a whole series of unusable, non-existent ciphers. Further, from
the dates he affixed to his forgeries in this category, the Ottomans
would have had to have used the same ciphers over a six-month period
which was impossible. By publishing a series of documents instructing
officials to change the ciphers they were using, it is shown that, in
fact, the Ottomans were changing their cipher codes on average once
every two months during the war years.
By comparing the manner in which the common Islamic injunction,
Besmele, was written on Andonian's two forged letters with numerous
examples of the way in which it appears on authentic contemporary
Ottoman documents, it is suggested that Andonian's clumsy forgery of
this term may well have stemmed from the fact that non-Muslims, even
those who knew Ottoman Turkish, did not employ this injunction.
A number of examples from Andonian's forgeries show that it is simply
inconceivable that any Ottoman official could have used such sentence
structures and made grammatical errors. In the same vein, a host of
expressions; allegedly uttered by prominent Ottoman officials are used,
which no Ottoman Turk would ever have used. Andonian's intention in
these instances was clear: he wanted nothing less than the Turks
themselves to be seeming to confess to crimes which he had manufactured
for them.
The forged documents, with two exceptions, were written on plain paper
with none of the usual signs found on the official paper used by the
Ottoman bureaucracy in this period. The fact that one of the forged
Turkish originals was written on a double-lined paper [see p.166],
which the Ottomans did not even use for private correspondence,
constitutes an even more serious error on Andonian's part. Even the two
forgeries which appear at first glance to have been written on some
kind of official Ottoman stationery are actually written on blank
telegraph forms, which anyone wishing to send a telegram could pick up
in any Ottoman post office.
At a time when the British were frantically searching the world's
archives for anything to be used as "evidence" against the group of
Ottoman officials whom they were holding for trial as being
"responsible for the Armenian incidents", their failure to utilize
Andonian's "documents" which were readily available in their English
edition, strongly suggests that the British Government was fully aware
of the nature of these forgeries.
Had documents of the nature of those concocted by Andonian ever
actually existed, their confidential nature would have dictated that
they be sent by courier for security reasons; rather than through the
easily breachable public telegraph system. Likewise, had such documents
really ever been written; it is inconceivable that they could have lain
around in a file for three years, instead of being destroyed as soon as
they had been read.
There are also numerous differences between the French and English
editions of Andonian's book. Indeed, these variations are of such
significance that it is absolutely impossible to ascribe them to
printing errors, or errors in translation.
Finally, the fact that even some authors with close links to Armenian
circles, who serve as spokesmen for Armenian causes, have indicated
their own doubt as to the veracity of Andonian's "documents" should not
be overlooked.
In short, from start to finish the so-called "Talât Pasha Telegrams"
are nothing more than crude forgeries, concocted by Andonian and his
associates.

Moreover the Ottoman archives contain a number of orders; whose
authenticity can definitely be substantiated, issued on the same dates,
in which Talat Pasha ordered investigations to be made to find and
punish those responsible for the attacks which were being made on the
deportation caravans. It is hardly likely that he would have been
ordering massacres on one hand and investigations and punishments for
such crimes on the other.

An American aid organization called "the Near East Relief Society" was
allowed by the Ottoman Government to stay and fulfill its functions in
Anatolia during the deportations. Even following the entry of U.S.A.
into war on the side of Entente powers against Ottoman Empire, the same
organization was permitted to remain in Anatolia. This was dealt in the
reports of the American Ambassador Elkus in Istanbul. In this case, if
an order for "massacring Armenians" had been given, would the Ottoman
Government have allowed to an American organization to be witness to
the "massacres". In other words, it is ridiculous to suppose that the
Ottomans said to America: "We are massacring Armenians. Why don't you
have a look at it." Such an allegation could never be a logical
explanation of historic facts.

Finally, and in the end most important, when the war came to an end,
the Armenian population still was substantially in place in Western
Anatolia, Thrace and Istanbul. Had the Ottoman government ordered
massacres, evidently they too would have been killed. And for that
matter, had the Ottoman government wanted to eliminate all the
Armenians in the Empire, it could have done so far more easily by
killing and disposing of them where they lived, rather than undertaking
a large-scale deportation of those in the Eastern war zones under the
eyes of foreign observers.

The claim, thus, that the Ottoman government ordered and carried out a
general massacre of Armenians in the Empire cannot be sustained and is
disproved by the facts.

Please click to see larger image A letter forged by Aram Andonian with
the date, February 18, 1331 (March 2,1916). The letter opens with a
"bismillah" (blessing), which would never have been written by a
Moslem. The forger, Andonian, made his most fatal mistake with the
date, however. He was obviously not well enough versed in the tricks of
converting to the Rumi year of the Ottomans, where a difference of
thirteen days between the Rumi and Gregorian calendars must be taken
into account. The date he put on the letter was off by a full year.
Instead of 1330 (1915), he wrote 1331 (1916). The contents of the
letter are supposed to be evidence of the long advance planning of the
resettlement operation of 1915.42

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 8. Did 1,5 Million Armenians Die During World War I ?

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Armenian propagandists claim that as many as 1, 5 to 2 million
Armenians died as the result of "massacres". Like the rest of their
claims, this also is imaginary, with the number claimed being increased
over time. At first, immediately following the war the Armenians
claimed that as many as 600,000 had been killed. Later they raised it
to 800,000 and now they talk about 1,5 million and tomorrow they may
talk even about three million. The 1918 edition of Encyclopedia
Britannica said that 600,000 Armenians had been killed; in its 1968
edition this was raised to 1,5 million.

How many Armenians did die? It is impossible to determine the number
exactly, since no complete death records of statistics were kept during
those years. The only basis on which even an estimate can be made is
the actual Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire at the time. Even
here figures vary widely, with the Armenians claiming far more than
other sources:

Claimed Armenian

Population
1. The Armenian author Leart, based on figures
Provided by the Patriarchate of Istanbul
2,560,000

2. The Armenian historian Basmajian
2,380,000

3. The Armenian National Committee at the
Paris Peace conference
2,250,000

4. The Armenian historian Kevork Aslan
1,800,000

5. The French Yellow Book
1,555,000

6. Encyclopedia Britannica
1,500,000

7. Constenson
1,400,000

8. Lynch
1,345,000

9.0fficial Ottoman census statistics for 1914
1,295,000

10. Annual Register (London)
1,056,000

Leaving aside the Armenian figures, which are evidently exaggerated,
the western estimates vary between 1,056,000 and 1,555,000 which more
or less corresponds with the official Ottoman census report of
1,295,000. How, then, could 1,5 million Armenians have been massacred
even had every Armenian in the Empire been killed, which of course did
not happen?

Therefore, what are the real Armenian losses? Talat Pasha, in a report
presented to the last congress of the Union and Progress Party, stated
that this number was estimated at around 300.000. Monseigneur Touchet,
a French clergyman, informed the congress of "Oeuevre d'Orient" in
February 1916, that the number of dead is thought to be 500.000, but
added that this figure might have been exaggerated.

Toynbee estimates the number of the Armenian losses as 600.000. The
same figure appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica's 1918 edition.
Armenians had also claimed the same number before. Bogos Noubar, head
of the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, declared that
after the war 280.000 Armenians were living in Turkey and 700.000
Armenians have emigrated to other countries. According to the
estimation of Bogos Noubar, the total number of the Armenian population
before the war was 1.300.000. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
number of the Armenian losses was around 300.000. This figure reflects
the same proportion, according to their total population, of the 3
million loss of Turkish lives during the same period. Once more, facts
do not correspond with the Armenian claims.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 9. Is the Sevres Agreement Still in Force?

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The Armenian propagandists claim that the Sévres Agreement, which
provided for the establishment of an Armenian State in eastern
Anatolia, is still legally in force, and use it to base their claims
for the "return" of "Armenian lands". In fact, this agreement was never
put into force. It was superseded and replaced by the Treaty of
Lausanne, and thus no longer has the force of law. In addition, after
the Dashnaks established an Armenian Republic in Erivan on 28 May 1918,
it signed the Batum Treaty of 4 June l918 with the Ottoman Government.
This treaty was described by Foreign Minister Hadisian of the Armenian
Republic as involving the full disavowal on the part of the latter of
all claims on the territory or people of the Ottoman Empire including
its Armenians and the lands claimed by the Armenian nationalists:

"The Armenians of Turkey no longer think of separating from the Ottoman
Empire. Their problems no longer are even the concern of relations
between the Armenian Republic and the Ottomans, Relations between the
Ottoman Empire and the Armenian Republic are excellent, and they must
remain that way in the future. All Armenian political parties feel the
same way. Continuation of this good neighborly spirit is one of the
principal points of the program recently announced by the Armenian
Government, of which I am Foreign Minister. "

Even the Dashnak organ Hairenik stated on 28 June 19l8:

"Russia's policy of hostility toward Turkey emboldened the Armenians of
the Caucasus; that is why the Caucasus Armenians were involved in
clashes between two friendly races. Thank goodness that this situation
did not last too long. Following the Russian Revolution, the Armenians
of the Caucasus understood that their security could be achieved only
by haying good relations with Turkey, and they stretched out their
hands to Turkey. Turkey also wanted to forget the events of the past,
and grasped the out-stretched hand in friendship. We agree that the
Armenian Question has been resolved and left to history. The mutual
feelings of suspicion and enmity created by foreign agents have been
eliminated. "

These declarations make it clear that the Armenian Question was closed
by the agreements concluded, following World War I; that the events
that had taken place were the responsibility of the Russians and
Armenians, not of the Turk, and that if anyone had been mistreated it
was the Turks, no-one else.

It is true that the World War I settlement was reopened for a time by
the Armenian Republic. Despite the Dashnak declarations, Armenian bands
began to raid into eastern Anatolia in the summer of 1918. On 28 May
1919, first anniversary of the foundation of the Armenian Republic by
the Dashnaks, it declared that "Armenia has annexed Eastern Anatolia"
thus laying claim to the territories of eastern Anatolia which had been
returned to the Ottoman Empire following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
To examine the Armenian claims and recommend a settlement, American
President Wilson sent an American investigation committee to Anatolia
in the fall of 1919 under the leadership of General James G. Harbord.
It toured through Anatolia during September and October, and then
reported to Congress that:

"The Turks and Armenians lived in peace side by side for centuries;
that the Turks suffered as much as the Armenians at the time of the
deportations; that only 20% of the Turkish villagers who went to war
would be able to return to their homes; that at the start of World War
I and before the Armenians never had anything approaching a majority of
the population in the territories called Armenia; they would not have a
majority even if all the deported Armenians were returned; and the
claims that returning Armenians would be in danger were not justified."

As a result of this report, in April 1920 the American Congress
rejected the proposal which had been made to establish an American
Mandate over Anatolia for the purpose of enabling the Armenians to
establish their own state in the East.

On 10 August 1920 the Armenians joined in signing the long-hoped-for
Treaty of Sévres, which provided that the Ottoman government would
recognize the establishment of an independent Armenian state, with
boundaries to be determined by President Wilson. This treaty was,
however, signed only by the Ottoman Government in Istanbul, while most
Turks, and most of the country accepted the leadership of the Ankara
government, led by Mustapha Kemal, who actively opposed the treaty and
its provisions.

In the meantime, following the Armistice of Mondros which concluded the
fighting of World War I in 1918, the province of Adana was occupied by
the French. The British occupied Urfa, Marash and Antep but later left
these also to the French.

As French forces occupied these provinces, in south and southeast
Anatolia, they were accompanied by Armenians wearing French uniforms,
who immediately began to ravage Turkish villages and massacred large
numbers of Turks. These atrocities stirred the Turks of the area to
resist, once again leading to the spreading of propaganda in Europe
that Turks were massacring Armenians. This time, however, since the
French themselves were forced to send the Armenians to the rear to end
the atrocities, the Armenian claims were evidently false, and no-one
really believed them.

After the American Congress rejected a Mandate over Anatolia, the
Armenian Republic in the Caucasus, starting in June l920, attacked
Turkey, sending guerilla bands as well as organized army units into
eastern Anatolia, and undertaking widespread massacres of the settled
population. The Ankara government moved to the defense in September,
and within .a short time the Armenian forces were routed, eastern
Anatolia was regained, and order and security re-established. By the
Treaty of Gumru (Alexandropol) signed by the Ankara Government and the
Armenian Republic on 3 December 1920, both sides accepted the new
boundaries and acknowledged that the provisions of the Treaty of
Sévres were null and void. The Armenians also renounced all
territorial claims against Turkey.

Shortly after this the Red Army entered Erivan and established the
Soviet Armenian Government. However through a revolt in Erivan on 18
February 1921 the Dashnaks once again took over control of Armenia. The
new Vratzian Government sent a committee to Ankara on 18 March asking
for Turkish assistance against the Bolsheviks, a strange event indeed
considering that only two years previously the Dashnaks had organized
an Armenian invasion of Turkey. The Dashnak government did not last
very long, however, and the Soviets soon regained control of Erivan.

On 16 March 1921 Turkey signed the Moscow Treaty with the Soviet Union,
by which the boundaries between Turkey and the Soviet Union were
definitively drawn. As arranged in this agreement, on 13 October 1921
Turkey signed the Kars Agreement with Soviet Armenia, confirming the
new boundaries between the two as well as their agreement that the
provisions of the Treaty of Sévres were null and void once and for
all.

The situation on the southern front was settled by the Treaty of Ankara
signed with France on 20 October 1921. France evacuated not only its
own troops, but also the Armenian guerillas and volunteers who had
cooperated with them, and most of the Armenians who had gathered at
Adana in the hope of establishing an Armenian state there. Most of
these Armenians were settled in Lebanon. This agreement made possible
the subsequent return of Hatay to Turkey, thus fulfilling the
provisions of the Turkish national pact which had been drawn up by
Mustapha Kemal and the leaders of the Turkish War for Independence.

All these settlements effectively nullified Armenian ambitions for a
state in eastern Anatolia. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July
1923 in place of the Treaty of Sévres, did not even mention the
Armenians, which is why Armenian nationalists even today try to
resurrect the Sévres treaty which never really was put into force.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Question 10. Are the Armenians of Turkey Being Oppressed Today?

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Armenian nationalist propagandists from time to time claim that the
Armenians of Turkey are being persecuted. This is done, not only to
reinforce their claims that the Turks persecuted Armenians throughout
history, but also to provide a unifying bond for Armenian action groups
and to get foreign states to intervene in Turkish internal affairs.
Like the other Armenian claims, this also is not based on fact.

The 40,000 - 50,000 Armenians living in Turkey today are in no way
separated from the remainder of the population. They are full Turkish
citizens, with the same rights and privileges as other Turkish
citizens, with their lives, liberties and happiness guaranteed by law.
The Armenians of Turkey continue to worship in their own churches and
teach in their own language in their own schools. They publish
newspapers, books and magazines in Armenian and have their own social
and cultural institutions in addition to participating fully in those
open to all Turks. The Armenian community in Istanbul has 30 schools,
17 cultural and social organizations, two daily newspapers called
Jamanak and Marmara, two sports clubs, named Shishly (Titli) and
Taksim, and many health establishments as well as numerous religious
foundations set up to support these activities.

Most of the Turkish Armenians continue to be Gregorian, and are led by
a Patriarch. In addition there are a number of Catholic and Protestant
Armenians who have their own churches and other institutions.

The Armenians of Turkey are as free to live prosperous and happy lives
as are Turks of other religions. Many of them are prosperous merchants
as well as leading members of the arts and professions. The Armenians
of Turkey are proud to be Turkish citizens and, along with all other
Turks, deeply resent the lies about their country spread in their name
by outside Armenian nationalists. In particular they abhorred the
terroristic attacks carried out by these groups on Turkish diplomats,
citizens; and interests throughout the world.

On November 1st 1981 the Armenian Patriarch held a memorial service at
the Patriarchate to commemorate the Turkish diplomats slaughtered by
Armenian terrorists and to condemn these acts done in the name of the
Armenian people. In February 1982 the Patriarch vigorously denied the
claims made by the Council of Europe that Turkey is oppressing its
minorities, stating "The Armenians of Turkey are Turkish citizens, they
live in peace in Turkey, they practice their religion freely and
benefit from the freedom of belief." Following the Armenian terrorist
assassination of Turkish Consul-General Kemal Arikan in Los Angeles on
28 January, 1982, the Armenian Patriarch stated "The Turkish Armenians,
like all other Turkish citizens, learned of this with great sorrow",
and appealed for "all Armenians living outside Turkey to rise up
against these illegal activities and murders." Turkish Armenians
themselves thus put the lie to this last claim of the Armenian
propagandists.

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The Armenian Issue in Ten Questions and Answers

Testimony of Professor Mümtaz SOYSAL,Ankara University

The Orly Trial (19 February - 2 March 1985)

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Your Honour,

I do not know any of the accused and I was not at Orly Airport on the
day of the attack. I am here upon the request of the lawyers of the
third party. Why? I could have appeared before this court as a moral
witness, since of the 42 Turks (31 of whom were diplomats and civil
servants) who were killed by Armenian terrorists, 12 had been my former
students or colleagues, and among the victims of the Orly attack my
countrymen form the majority.

But I am here, to clarify another matter for you. In my status as a
witness, I was not allowed, to take part in the former sessions of this
trial and therefore could not follow the developments apart from
reading what the local papers wrote. But what I did read in the local
papers proved the necessity for this clarification. The defense
lawyers, by requesting the testimonies of certain political
personalities, were counting on making them talk, among other things,
of the "genocide" of Armenians and in this way expecting to bring
politics into the trial. Their efforts may have proved to be vain, at
this stage. But I have my suspicions that they will pursue this
intention nevertheless. And this is not simply a presentiment, but a
conviction, since this, pattern has repeated itself in all the trials
of this kind. Did not the psychiatric expert talk here of a certain
fervent idealism which, he claimed could have prompted the accused to
committing the crimes with which they are being charged, and did they
not, in turn, talk of, childhood nourished with feelings of vengeance
against the people responsible for the genocide? I have come here to
talk about this very problem.

I am neither a historian nor an ethnologist. I am a jurist. It seems to
me that the incidents of 1915 and the events that led to or followed
them are closely pertinent to an analysis of all kinds of crimes, which
pretend to be morally inspired by a feeling of collective revenge
attributed to these incidents. This analysis is also necessary in
speaking of the motive to attract international interest to injustices
that remain unpunished.

As a jurist, I am surprised by the ease, in fact the lighthearted way
in which the term "genocide" is used, especially in this country by
everyone from statesmen to the mere partisans of the Armenian cause.
And yet, this term refers to a well defined crime, the definition of
which has been given in an international convention made after the
Second World War: the "Convention for the Prevention and the Repression
of the Crime of Genocide", approved by the General Assembly of the
United Nations in its resolution of December 9,1948 and which went into
effect on January 11, 1951; convention which Turkey signed and
ratified.

In the convention the definition of the crime of genocide consists of
three elements: for one thing, there has to be a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group. Then, this group has to be subject to
certain acts listed in the convention. The "murder of the members of
the group, and forced transfer of the children of one group into
another group and subjecting the members of a group to conditions which
will eventually bring about their physical destruction" come within the
range of actions listed in the said convention. . But the third element
is the most important: there has to be "an intent of destroying", in
part or in whole the said group.

This key-description helps to differentiate between genocide and other
forms of homicide, which are the consequences of other motives such as
in the case of wars, uprisings etc. Homicide becomes genocide when the
latent or apparent intention of physical destruction is directed at
members of any one of the national, ethnic, racial or religious groups
simply because they happen to be members of that group. The concept of
numbers only becomes significant when it can be taken as sign of such
an intention against the group. That is why, as Sartre said in speaking
of genocide on the occasion of the Russell Tribunal on the Vietnam War,
that one must study the facts objectively in order to prove if this
intention exists, even in an implicit manner.

A survey of three group of facts will be sufficient to reach a
conclusion on this matter in connection with the Armenian problem The
first group of facts concerns eight centuries of history, from the
eleventh to these second half of the nineteenth century, during which
Turks and Armenians of Anatolia: led a peaceful coexistence that has
not been equaled in the annals of the peoples of the world. From the
time of the conquest of Asia Minor by the Turks to the era of
nationalism, no major conflict, no armed struggle brought these two
communities against each other. In the entire history of the world
there are no two other peoples with languages, and religious beliefs
manner for different, who have managed to coexist in such a, peaceful
such a long period. We are proud of this tolerance on the part of the
Turkish people, who in this way made possible such an exceptional
coexistence. This exceptional situation becomes even more remarkable in
that it paved the way for deep cultural exchange whose fruits are still
evident in the daily life of both peoples: for example most of the
family names of Armenians are compositions of Turkish words (mostly
names of professions) with an Armenian suffix. On the other hand the
contemporary Turkish music and art is full of the names of composers
and artists of Armenian origin.

The second group of facts is related more precisely to the incidents of
1915 and to the events, which led to or followed these. The second half
on the nineteenth century was the era, of nationalism for different
ethnic group, which formed the Ottoman Empire. It vas a new current of
thought which prompted each people to engage in an armed struggle in
order to establish its own state on parts of the imperial territories.
Almost all of them succeeded, with the exception of the Armenians whose
struggle for independence differs on exceptional front from the other
national fights: as a hard working people endowed with many talents in
arts and artisanry and faithful to the Sultan's authority, the
Armenians spread throughout Asia Minor and even to the European
territories of the Empire, so that they lost their majority status in
the lands which they inhabiting before the times of the Turks. In this
way there was not a single part of Eastern Anatolia by the end of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth' century. That
was inhabited by an Armenian majority. Therefore there was no national
liberation movement, to use a fashionable term, in any specific part of
the territories of the Empire, which could be called "Armenia". There
were only uprisings and acts of terrorism committed by the Armenians in
different corners of the country. As any self-respecting state the
Ottoman state took some measures, sometimes very severe, to protect
itself from these activities.

Then the First World War started. In 1915 the Ottoman Empire was
fighting on several fronts. While it fought in the West to resist the
attacks of the allied forces in the Dardanelles, the East was
threatened by the invasion of the Armies of Czarist Russia. We must
note that Russia was one of the main great powers that took an interest
in the Armenian question, during all of the second half of the
nineteenth century with the aim of accelerating the disintegration of
the Ottoman Empire from which it hoped eventually to benefit to a great
extent. During the war the Russian rulers made use of their involvement
with the Armenian cause with a view to devastate the Ottoman lines of
defense. This brought about collaboration between the Russian Army and
the Armenian rebels, including those who were doing their military
service within the Sultan's army. In the eyes of the leaders of the
Armenian revolt this may have been a necessary cooperation on their
path to their national independence. But for the Ottomans it was
treason. In this atmosphere of war there followed a series of
insurrections, rebellions, reprisals and mutual killing. It is at this
time that the government had to take a difficult decision:

to transfer the Armenian soldiers from the combat troops into the
non-combating troops;
to evacuate the Armenian population from the zone of operations in
south-eastern Anatolia and to the North of present-day Syria, which at
the time was still part of the Empire. These were measures necessary to
ensure the security of the troops and to protect the passages for the
provisioning of the Army.
It was a painful relocation. The transport of all the Armenian
population was carried out in very strict conditions, across a very
mountainous and arid region. Means of transportation were scarce and
the people being displaced generally had to cover long distances on
foot, often harassed and attacked by some tribes who had escaped the
authority of the state. At the time epidemics were running strong as
well as famine that hit the whole civilian population and even the
military. At times the over-zealous attitude of some administrators
who, in their efforts to fulfil the government orders, did little in
the way of measures to be taken for the protection of the displaced
persons, aggravated the unfavorable circumstances. In brief a tragedy
was lived through in those days in that part of Anatolia, but it Was a,
common tragedy, causing mutual suffering and taking thousands of
victims on both sides.

But this tragedy cannot be called genocide. Because it lacks the
essential element for the qualification of genocide, that is the
intention to destroy the Armenian ethnic group as such. It is a
question of wartime action, decided upon in an atmosphere of armed
conflict, in the heart of a dying Empire beset by disorder and
disorganization. The relocation of the Armenian element obviously had
consequences that at first glimpse may fulfil the conditions set out by
the 1948 Convention. There were killings involving the members of the
group especially by irresponsible members of some of the tribes of the
region. There was physical suffering due especially to the geographical
and climatic conditions in a country already devastated by the war. It
is also true that some orphans were adopted by Muslim families. But
that was in no way prompted by the intention to bring about a forced
transfer of the children of one group to another group, to use the
language of the convention, but on the contrary, inspired, in a spirit
of solidarity and charity, by the centuries of peaceful coexistence
which had tied together the Anatolian families. The intention to
destroy an ethnic group, in part or as a whole is absent in all this
series of events, since all the sources, even the most ardent advocates
of the Armenian cause, accept that none of these measures were applied
to the Armenians in the areas distant to the war fronts or to the
Armenians who had settled in the big cities such as Istanbul and Izmir.
On the other hand, many civil servants, even district officers of
Armenian origin maintained their position during all these incidents
which hit the eastern regions of the country, continuing in this way
the long tradition of the Ottoman State to open the doors of its
administration to non-Muslim elements. In fact the Ottoman
administration boasted of several Armenian ministers and ambassadors
(even to important capitals such as Berlin and Vienna,, etc) and high
ranking offices in its service.

As to the eastern Anatolian region, Turkey is in possession of
innumerable documents in its Ottoman archives - letters, telegrams,
circulars etc. (of which some have been recently published), in which
governmental authorities display efforts, in spite of the tragic
circumstances of a desperate war, for the protection and. safety of the
displaced persons. It could be that they failed in these efforts in
certain cases. But these failures can certainly not be considered as
proof of an intention of genocide comparable in any way to that of
Hitler whose ultimate aim had been the total destruction of the Jewish
race, an end towards which all the mechanism of the State had been
directed.

The third group of facts which makes it possible to reject the
accusations of "genocide of Armenians 'by the Turks" concerns the
harmonious relations between the Turkish people and the Armenian
minority in today's Turkey.

It is necessary to review the characteristics of the three last
generations of Armenians living abroad and to compare their lot with
those of the Armenians in Turkey, in order to understand the nature of
these relations.

The first generation consists of the exiled, those who had to leave the
country during or before the fall of the Empire, who have suffered and
whose kin were victims of the First World War. Some of these Armenians
reacted to this situation with a feeling of revenge and, forgetting
that the sufferings had been experienced on both sides, engaged
themselves in individual acts of terrorism against Ottoman officials.

The second generation of Armenians abroad consists of those who have
adapted themselves into their surroundings people who became integrated
with the new society which received them and who, thanks to their
remarkable qualities as a hardworking and artistically talented people,
distinguished themselves in their new society, achieving prosperity and
popularity. It is this final point that led part of the third
generation, that of today's young Armenians abroad to assert their
national identity once more through acts of violence. The target is to
prevent the past from being forgotten, to stop the progressive
integration of Armenians in their new surroundings and the
disappearance of Armenian culture. Unfortunately in order to assert
their identity, these young people chose the easiest way: that of
violence. The acts of violence carried out by these young people
obviously hold several dangers for them. But compared to the worthwhile
cultural and intellectual efforts, to be made for the perpetuation of
an Armenian identity, these act of violence are doomed to remain too
simple and too futile a choice.

But the third generations of Armenians who live in Turkey are not going
through this kind of an identity crisis. For they have all the means of
perpetuating the characteristics of their ethnic group, as in the days
of peaceful coexistence in the bosom of the Empire. In addition, their
rights as a religious minority are guaranteed by an international
treaty: the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923 and of which France is
the depositary. The cultural exchange between the Turkish people and
the Armenian minority continues and the two communities share the same
kind of life in an atmosphere of peace without grievances. It should be
noted that even before the onset of the terrorism, which swept over
Turkey prior to 1980, the Armenians of Turkey have never taken part in
acts of violence. The few isolated incidents, which took place, were
the doings of Armenians indoctrinated and trained abroad. The case of
the notorious "Seminary Jerusalem, must be considered within this
context. One of the accused, according to the Press, apparently said
that he was forced to carry on his studies in Jerusalem because of a
lack of Armenian schools in Turkey. Allow me, Your Honour, to list a
few examples from among the 19 nursery schools, 20 primary schools, 29
secondary schools and 5 high schools (lycees) in which the instruction
is carried out in the Armenian language and which have easily
recognizable Armenian names: the Bezesyan nursery and primary school,
the Levon Vartuhyan primary school, the Semerciyan Gemeran nursery and
primary school, the Karagozyan primary school, the Aramyan Uncuyan
Secondary school, the Bezciyan secondary Scholl, the Sanakyan Nunyan,
Eseyan, Getronagan etc. high schools.

It is precisely against this reciprocal tolerance and this peaceful
coexistence between the Turkish people and the Armenian community that
the young Armenians abroad are directing their terrorism. But up to now
all such efforts have proved futile and neither the Turkish people nor
the government has had recourse to acts of violence against the
Armenian community in Turkey.

And yet terrorism persists and people continue to talk of the
"genocide" of seventy years ago. Why? Because genocide is a crime
against humanity and that the convention which I have already mentioned
defines it as "a crime against humanity". It is easily possible, in
speaking of genocide, to influence world public opinion, to mobilize it
against a State, a nation or a people. It is also an imprescriptible
crime, a crime that must be punished regardless of the time at which it
had been committed. The authors of that crime must therefore be
chastised everywhere and at all times and, since this crime, in the
eyes of the Armenian terrorists, is one that can be attributed to all
the Turkish nation, the representatives of the present Turkish State
and its citizens must be punished: young diplomats, whose parents were
not even born at the time of the incidents, simple workers boarding
their national airliner to go on home leave.

This is why Armenian terrorists prefer to distort history and to
describe as genocide a human tragedy shared by two people in
circumstances of war. This serves them, as a pretext to commit further
acts of terrorism. But according to the juridical definition given by
the United Nations Convention which speaks of an intention to destroy,
even in part, the members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group, because they are members of that group, their own acts take on a
genocidal aspect: to kill Turks because they are Turks and to attempt
to place a bomb in an airplane simply because it belongs to the Turkish
Airlines, transporting Turkish passengers; that in itself is
"genocidal" act, if not genocide itself. Thank you, Your Honour.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Me. VERGES accuses Professor Soysal of giving "a most cynical"
interpretation of "genocide" which, he says cost the lives of one
million and half Armenians in eastern Anatolia, Then having read a
passage from the book of the Belgian Minister Baron de Brouckere he
asks Professor Soysal what he thinks of these dramatic descriptions of
the said incidents.

PROF. SOYSAL: It is very easy to select similar passages from among a
quantity of books written by the partisans of the Armenian cause. I
could have done the same and read pages, and pages in books that
describe the massacre of the Turks by Armenians in the same regions of
the country. We, too, can give numbers to speak for themselves. Numbers
taken from Ottoman census figures and confirmed by reports of the
consuls of great powers of Europe, which clearly indicate that the
total number of Armenians living in the Empire at the time did not
exceed 1,300,000. It is therefore absurd to talk of "a million and a
half dead people", even accepting the dismal hypothesis of a massacre
of all the members of the Armenian community in the various regions of
the State. I could have in the same way quoted passages from foreign
authors who give another version of the events, a version which is not
as biased against Ottoman rulers. I could have cited the book of a
French officer, Commander M. Larcher, "The Turkish War within the First
World War" which bears a preface by Marechal Franchet d'Esperay who
commanded the forces of the allied occupation army and talks of the
"correct behavior" of the Turkish people and military authorities. We
must not forget that all these events took place in an era in which a
large Empire was falling with all the disorder that such an event
implies.

There were certainly some administrators who abused their powers in an
excess of zeal. But they were punished by Ottoman tribunals following
the war, as the individuals responsible for these excessive behaviors
and not as executors of a government policy aiming at genocide.

Me. VERGES after having read a passage by Lord Bryce on the cruelty of
the Turks, and an extract from, the book by M. Morgenthau, United
States Ambassador to Istanbul, on the events of 1915, asks the opinion
of Professor Soysal on these.

PROF. SOYSAL: Your Honour, I have just said a few moments ago that if
we were allowed to produce here before you a, stack of books, we could
have quoted passages expressing just the opposite of what has just been
read here. But it is true that the quantity of anti-Turkish,
pro-Armenian books is immense. All was done to prove the existence of
an act of genocide on the part of the Turks: false arguments were based
on false documents, and falsifications. As to Morgenthau, we must be
sure to note that both he and especially his successors who happened to
be in Istanbul during the occupation of the Allied Forces had the
possibility to obtain irrefutable proof certifying the responsibility
of Ottoman rulers in the said "genocide". But nothing of the kind
happened, not even after all the archives came under the control of the
occupying military forces.

Me. VERGES, notes that M. Morgenthau was not in Istanbul at the end of
the war and mentions this time Doctor Lepsius, German missionary, and
asks what Professor Soysal thinks of him.

PROF. SOYSAL: M. Morgenthau, as ambassador in a warring country, never
set foot outside Istanbul and all his reports reflect the information
supplied to him by his dragomans who were more often than not, of
Armenian origin; and by the missionaries. Doctor Lepsius was also a
missionary. I have noticed that, in the passage that has just been
read, he mentions the case of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Allow me,
Your Honour, in connection with this to say something very soon, in a
few years, Turkey will be celebrating the five hundredth anniversary of
the Exodus of Jews from Spain into Turkey. Escaping, religious
inquisition and repression these people found refuge in the territories
of the Ottoman State which gave them asylum and piece with an
administrative system based on self-government of non-Muslim
communities. We are proud of this system and of this past full of
tolerance towards the Christian and Jewish peoples of the Empire.

Me. BOURGUET reproaches Professor Soysal for having made a political
speech instead of supplying a legal explanation and accuses him, with
hiding behind the principle of non-retroactivity of the penal code in
talking of an international convention which only went into effect
after the Second World War. He asks also why in his testimony he has
used the term "Armenian element" to designate the Armenian "people".

PROF. SOYSAL: The fact that the Convention for the Prevention and
Repression of the Crime of Genocide dates from, 1948 has nothing to do
with our discussion. What I am trying to explain by using the juridical
definition given in that text is the exact nature of the events which
took place in the historic period beginning at the end of the
nineteenth century and lasting up to the aftermath of the First World
War. I take the definition of the said convention as a, touchstone and
accepting the existence of a human tragedy common to Turkish and
Armenian people of Eastern Anatolia alike, I say that these incidents
do not constitute a crime of genocide attributable to the Ottoman
rulers. We are ready to confront our own history and to assume
responsibility for it, even in the case of a subsequently defined
crime. I know full well that there is a discussion among jurists on the
retroactive character of the convention. Even though the very term,
"genocide", is a term fabricated at the aftermath of the Second World
War, we can, it is true, argue that convention is "declarative" of law,
in that it confirms the existence of a crime already condemned by
humanity. That it is retroactive or not changes nothing in the essence
of our discussion here, since the historic facts are not of a nature to
prove the existence of such a crime.

As to the term "Armenian element which I used, I should like to remind
Your Honour that this is not the only term I used in talking of
Armenians. I have used other terms such as ethnic group, people,
minority etc. The qualification does not change the juridical argument.
The convention speaks of a group that could be an ethnic group, a
people, a minority, or if you like a nation. The Armenians of the
Ottoman Empire certainly formed a group in the sense of the convention.
But this point is not relevant to what I am trying to explain mainly
the non-existence of the crime of genocide against this group.

Me. BOURGUET asks about the number of "Kurds" living in Anatolia.

PROF. SOYSAL: I see no relation between, this question and our
discussion here, but I perceive the insinuation. Turkey is a unitary
republic based on the equality of its citizens before the law, without
distinction of race, religion or language. It is true that there are
citizens of the Turkish Republic whose maternal language is not
Turkish, but in a state, which makes no distinction among its citizens
in connection with the language, which they speak, this paint has no
juridical consequence. To accentuate this principle even further, the
issue of maternal language no longer comes up in the recent population
census questionnaires. It is therefore difficult to give a number. It
is as if you were asked to give the number of Bretons in France. Which
number could you give? The number of peoples inhabiting Brittany? They
are not all Bretons. The numbers of people of Breton origin who live
all aver France? It is impossible to give such a number, in view of the
different degrees of kinship and different concepts of origin in the
people themselves.

Juridically speaking, the term "minority" applies only to the three
non-Moslem communities established as such by the Treaty of Lausanne:
the Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Jewish minorities. The rights of these
people have been guaranteed by an international treaty in addition to
the already existing guarantees accorded to all citizens of Turkey by
the constitutional order of the country.

Me. BORGUET asks the meaning of the term "Mountain Turks"

PROF. SOYSAL: I am aware that this term has been circulating abroad, in
order to ridicule the Republican attitude concerning Turkish citizens
of different ethnic groups. In Turkey, as in France, citizenship is not
an ethnic or racial category but a juridical one. It has nothing to do
with the ethnic origin and the ethnic origin of a person has no
juridical implications. The term used by Maitre Bourguet is never used
in Turkey, but it is sometime seen in foreign books, in derisive
manner. It may also have been used in the early days of the Turkish
Republic to erase all traces of ethnic hostility an effort which merits
only praise. But this term is not current in today's Turkey

Me. BORGUET referring to the number of victims of the 1915 incidents
declares that a reduction of the number of victims does not indicate
that the crime did not take place and that the fact of having escaped
death does not prove the lack of a genocide or an attempt in that
direction.

PROF. SOYSAL: A reduction or an increase in the number of the victims
makes no difference in the nature of the crime, if the crime does
exist. That is why shunned numbers in the course of my deposition. What
I tried to demonstrate was that there was no intention to partially or
totally destroy the Armenian ethnic group on the part of the
authorities of the Ottoman State. That is the essential aspect of the
problem. Without the existence of this intention, the admission of the
mutually-experienced human tragedy does not mean the admission of the
alleged genocide.

Me. BOURGUET asks why Turkey insists in not admitting the "genocide"
and wishes to be informed of the difference, in the eyes of the Turks,
between the concept of genocide and that of massacre, especially from,
the point of view of juridical consequences.

PROF. SOYSAL: At first let us bring some precision, since law requires,
above all, very precise concepts: what I contrast to the concept of
"genocide of the Armenians by the Turks" is not the "concept of the
massacre of Armenians by the Turks". No, the apposition is between the
"genocide of Armenians by the Turks" on one side and "the tragedy
shared by the two communities at a very precise period of history which
consisted of rebellions, appraisals, reprisals, acts of revenge and
mutual killings". If we should, speak in terms of numbers, I could also
supply the number of two and a half million Turks who perished during
the same period at the end of the nineteenth century, until the
aftermath of the First World War. A majority of these people met their
death in the incidents in the eastern region of Anatolia. I negate
nothing. I only observe the historic facts and note the absence of an
intention to destroy an ethnic group, because it is that ethnic group.
To admit genocide under the circumstances would be to admit a
non-truth. It would also mean, accepting an affront, an insult to the
Turkish people whose past is full of examples of tolerance and good
will towards other religious communities. It is an insult to a nation,
which is still eager today to continue this peaceful coexistence with
the Armenian community on its territory, in a unitary republic. It
would also mean to admit the consequences of unilateral propaganda and
the persistence of hostility between the two peoples. We nurture no
collective hatred against Armenians. To admit the existence of genocide
would be to admit also the necessity of a collective pardon before
history, a history without blemish, in this respect, for the Turkish
people, when in the period when the rest of the world was torn by
religious quarrels. It would be also to admit territorial claims on the
heritage of the present Turkish Republic. Anatolia was the cradle of
several civilizations and several people in the past. Today it belongs
to the Turks, to the Turkish Republic. Because genocide is an
imprescriptible crime, the young Armenian terrorists of our days assume
the right to punish this Republic and its citizens. Humanity cannot
accept this concept of chastisement and revenge. The incidents in
question took place seventy years ago and it is futile to rummage
through the pages of history in an effort to recreate new mutual
enmities. To accept the existence of these pages is a moral duty for
all historians and all men of conscience, but to interpret these pages
in a unilateral manner and to accuse only one of the peoples indulging
in the common strife is an attitude that the collective conscience of
humanity cannot accept.

Me. BOURGUET reads the text of a telegram, attributed to Talat Pasha,
Minister of Interior of the Ottoman government, in 1915, and asks if
this telegram, which according to him is evidence of the existence of
genocide, is authentic and would like to have explanations on this
subject.

PROF. SOYSAL: This, telegram is a false one. What is being published
nowadays in several propaganda books is the photograph of a photograph
and the original does not exist. Because the original was a false one
fabricated by a certain Andonian, who published a book at the time of
the trial of Tehlirian, the assassin of Talat Pasha, in 1921, in
Berlin. The tribunal of Berlin never accepted the authenticity of this
text, nor that of other documents published in the book. But its
publication influenced public opinion and the assassin was acquitted.
These documents which were supposedly sold to Mr. Andonian by
low-ranking employee of the Ottoman administration contains notes
"signed" by the Prefect of Aleppo whose real signature, as appears in
the Ottoman archives, in no way corresponds to the one on the false
document. There are also errors of date resulting from the fact that
the person who fabricated the false documents was not well informed in
the Conversion of the Julian and Gregorian calendars. I repeat, I am
not a historian, but I must note that Turkish historians have
meticulously demonstrated and published other errors relating to the
ciphers used in telegrams and to the headings of the documents, so that
these documents have lost all the value attributed to them. They have
in fact become examples of falsification perpetuated in the hope to
distort history for political causes.

Me. BOURGUET asks why the Turkish side does not make available to
foreigners the ottoman archives in order to disprove the accusations,
and underlines the Turkish authorities reluctance to submit documents
relating to the Armenian question to be examined Permanent Tribunal of
Peoples which met in Paris in 1984 to make a judgement on the same
problem.

PROF. SOYSAL: The Ottoman archives are open, to the extent that their
classification permits, to scholars of good will, of all nationalities.
It is obvious that some precautions are required to safe guard the past
heritage, especially in the case of such a controversial problem. The
study of Ottoman archives, containing millions of documents in a
difficult language and writing requires an extraordinary amount of
expertise. What has just been published from out of these by a limited
number of experts already proves exactly the opposite of what has been
propagated for a long time on this subject. Turkey therefore has
immense gain, contrary to what some are thinking to open its Ottoman
archives to the use of scholars.

As to the Permanent Tribunal of Peoples, I think that the Turkish
authorities are ready to send officially requested documents by legally
constituted tribunals. For example, this Court of Assizes can request
the Turkish authorities to send a document or an official notice and
this request will certainly be promptly met. But since the Permanent
Tribunal of the Peoples is a tribunal of opinion, constituted by
individuals of private status, whatever their intellectual competence
may be, I think that the Turkish authorities have abstained from making
official contacts with this organization which, in their eyes, risks
becoming an instrument of propaganda for the Armenian cause.

Me. ZAVARIAN referring to eight centuries of peaceful coexistence
between the Turkish people and the Armenians and to the characteristics
of the Armenian community as described by Professor Soysal, tries to
contrast what he calls the "peasant side" of the Turks to the "artistic
sense" of Armenians and to draw some conclusions from this for the
analysis of the problem.

PROF. SOYSAL: I did not make any comparisons in praising the qualities
of the Armenian people. If by such a tentative analysis what is meant
is that the Turks, less refined than their Armenian neighbours, would
be more inclined towards acts of violence, there is here an insinuation
that I reject with great indignation. I cannot allow my people to be
insulted.

Me. ZAVARIAN asks what the date 24 April 1915 signifies far the Turks.

PROF. SOYSAL: First, allow me, Your Honour, to say precisely what this
date means for the Armenian cause. For them it is the date of the
beginning of the "genocide", therefore a date that must be commemorated
each year. They wish that all the peoples in the world remember this
date because it marks the beginning of a series of crimes against
humanity.

In reality what did happen exactly on that date? It is the day when the
Ottoman government gave the order to arrest the leaders of the Armenian
revolutionary committees and to try them before military tribunals for
the act of treason.

Me. ZAVARIAN noting that 650 Armenian intellectuals, writers poets,
doctors, lawyers, scholars, priests and political personalities were
imprisoned on this date in Constantinople, then deported and
assassinated, asks whether this is not a proof of genocide.

PROF. SOYSAL: First it is not Constantinople, but Istanbul, the name
that Turks have always given to that city. Then, the Armenians were not
arrested because they were Armenian intellectuals but simply because
they were leaders of committees which ordered the Armenians of the
Eastern provinces to revolt against the State and to cooperate with the
Russian army. For the government of a warring country threatened with
invasion, a different attitude would not have been thinkable. These
leaders were not assassinated but simply transferred to the interior
regions of the country, into the provinces of central Anatolia. The
fact that some of them were sentenced and paid with their lives for
treason intolerable in times of war certainly constitutes no proof of
genocide.

Me. ZAVARIAN asks about the locations to which the Armenians of the
eastern provinces were transferred.

PROF. SOYSAL: That yellow book to which you have been referring all
through this trial and which is entitled "Crime of Silence" contains
all the reports submitted to the "Permanent Tribunal of the Peoples", I
also have it in my pocket. You will find in it, on page 6 or 8, a map
showing with arrows the itineraries of the relocated Armenians. We must
note here that the displacement took place within the frontiers of the
State towards the south-east of the same country. There is no question
therefore, of a "deportation" in the sense that this word acquired in
the course of the Second World War.

Me. ZAVARIAN notes that the Germans did not use the word "deportation"
while they deported millions of Jews to exterminate them.

PROF. SOYSAL: I can see what is intended by this remark. The scenario
of the previous trials repeats itself here too, I am sure that the next
step will be to mention the famous phrase attributed to Hitler at the
beginning of the Second World War: After all who remembers now the
extermination of the Armenians?". But it has been demonstrated later,
especially by an American researcher, Heath Lowry, that Hitler never
uttered this sentence attributed to him by an English journalist. And
the documents accepted by the Nurenberg Tribunal do not contain such a
phrase. The only document referred to as evidence of this phrase was
rejected as a false document by the same international tribunal. It is
noteworthy that there is continued effort to mobilize Jewish public
opinion in the world against Turkey and to provoke a universal
condemnation of the Turks by putting the Turks and Hitler in the same
basket.

Me. ZAVARIAN alludes to the request of official pardon which the
Federal Republic of Germany made in the name of the German people and
to the positive effect of this gesture on the relations between Germany
and Israel.

PROF. SOYSAL: One more example is seen here of the ultimate aim of the
Armenian cause and of its terrorists: to force the Turkish governments
to accept the existence of the so-called "genocide" and, thereupon to
oblige them to pay indemnities to a fictitious Armenian entity, as was
the case between Germany and the State of Israel. This is pure fantasy,
and no violence, no terror in the world will make us beg forgiveness
for a crime that was not committed. Israel is not a good example in
this context and the parallel drawn here is unacceptable. But to speak
of it seriously, and to push the various Armenian communities of the
world in the part of an impossible dream is not a very honest attitude
towards the Armenian people.

Me. ZAVARIAN having read an extract from the newspaper "Le Monde" where
a news item datelined Ankara, mentions a phrase by Prime Minister
Turgut Özal on the necessity of a new attitude in the Armenian affair,
asks whether one can speak of a. change in Turkey's official policy in
connection with assuming responsibility for the "genocide". He feels
that Professor Soysal, as the jurist specializing in these subjects,
and who has defended the policy of the Turkish government at other
similar occasions, must be in a position to answer this question.

PROF. SOYSAL: This comment reminds me of the famous La Fontaine fable
of the Fox and the Crow. There is an effort to bring out of my mouth
words that might indicate an official mission in order to make me
appear as the official spokesman for the government. I am not a
spokesman for anyone. I am speaking here as an academician and as a
journalist and this is the first time that I bear witness in a trial
concerning Armenian terrorists. What the Prime Minister may have said
on the subject does not engage me in anyway. Anyway, he came up with
further remarks on that subject.

What I am saying personally in my position as expert witness before
this tribunal is quite clear: I say that history must be accepted as
such, and facts must be restituted in the same way that they were
mutually experienced by the two peoples. We Turks have nothing to fear
from this kind of confrontation since the accusation of a premeditated
and organized genocide aiming at the destruction of the Armenian ethnic
group cannot stand against an analysis of the true historic facts in
this subject. Up to now the Turkish Republic preferred not to talk
about these facts in the hope of forgetting the past and restoring
peace and harmony on the Anatolian land, and in its relations with its
neighbours. It is for this reason that in our schools we chose oblivion
and the silence both in the subject of the suffering inflicted on the
Turkish people by Armenians and Greeks, and in the subject of the human
tragedies that all these people have lived through together. This
Turkish silence lasted seventy years. But others have been speaking,
and distorting history while doing so, and creating another image in
which we appear as the guilty side. This image, based on the accounts
of only one of the sides and on the interpretations of the circles
hostile towards the Turks, has covered along distance and even if with
faltering steps, reached counter-truths. Now we must restitute the
truth. They forced us to speak and we shall speak.

Me. ZAVARIAN wishes to be informed of the causes of the events of 6 and
7 September 1955 during which Christian minorities of Istanbul suffered
some material damage, as an outcome of anti-Greek demonstrations in
connection with the Cyprus affair.

PROF. SOYSAL: Your honour, I think I can detect the ulterior motive
behind this question. The defence seems to imply that the Turk is the
barbarian, the brute; he destroys, he kills. These insinuating and the
degrading description does not correspond in any way to realities of a
people who can be proud of creating one of the most tolerant
civilizations of history. Incidents such as those of 1955 in Istanbul
are frequent in the contemporary world torn by international conflicts
and their repercussions on the national scenes. But to deduce from this
some consequences to accuse a single nation betrays a bad intentions
nurtured by historic hatred. The brotherhood of mankind will never
become a reality if one continues to sow hatred among peoples in this
way.

Thank you, Your Honour, for having given me the occasion to speak. It
does not happen often.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ali Asker

2/19/2005 6:58:00 PM

Le singe turc répète la même chose à plusieurs reprises ! !

marktrivers

2/19/2005 10:50:00 PM

Ali Asker wrote:
> Le singe turc répète la même chose à plusieurs reprises ! !

The sub-human anti-Turkish hatred fabricators, murderers of innocent
and defenceless Turks and thugs of Armenian/Greek/PKK/KADEK
anti-Turkish Hatred Inc., with a veracious appetite for innocent
Turkish blood, never stop in their relentless dreams of massacring all
Turks everywhere in the World. The sub-human Greek/Armenian/PKK/KADEK
terrorists think repeating anti-Turkish hate propaganda over and over
legitimize their rape, torture and murder of innocent and defenceless
Turkish human beings.

After Europeans very generously supported and sponsored Greek,
Armenian, Arab and other terrorists, with a veracious appetite for
innocent Turkish blood, to massacre innocent and defenceless Turkish
subjects of Ottoman empire and to ethnically cleanse Ottoman
territories off of their Turkish inhabitants during WWI, and after they
harbored, supported, sponsored PKK/KADEK terrorist organization which
murdered nearly fourty thousands innocent human beings to destroy
Turkey to establish a marxist, lennisist, communist PKK/KADEK
dictortship in Turkey, and other terrorist and extremist Islamist
terrorist organizations and persons with the same purpose, and Armenian
terrorists who, during 1970s and '80s, murdered hundreds of Turkish
diplomats, their family members, colleagues, embassy personnel (Turkish
and local), and having missed no chance whatsoever to fabricate
anti-Turkish hate propaganda based on total lies in every possible
instance and relentlessly complain about Turkey, it is very clear that
the purpose of Europe is to destroy the democratic Republic of Turkey
and totally wipe out the Turkish race/nation off of the face of Earth.

http://www.atmg.org/Gre...

GREECE AND PKK TERRORISM

CONTENTS:

Prologue
1. Introduction
2. The Organisational Structure of the PKK in Greece
3. PKK's Activities in Greece
a. Media and Propaganda Activities
b. Militant Training Camps
c. Fundraising
4. Greek Authorities' Support to the PKK
a. Government and Other Authorities
b. Parliamentarians and Political Parties
c. Local Authorities and Other Circles
5. International Publications and Press Reports
6. Testimonies of the PKK Militants Exposing the Greek Involvement in
PKK Terrorism
7. Conclusion
Epilogue
Press Review
Appendices
PROLOGUE
THE COLD KILLERS OF 17 NOVEMBER WHO ALWAYS GO FREE
THE OBSERVER
28 SEPTEMBER 1997

Leonard Doyle examines the role of the Greek intelligence service.

Ever since the Greek terrorists known as the Revolutionary Movement 17
November gunned down the CIA station chief in Athens a few days before
Christmas 1975, the shadowy group has managed to strike with impunity
at its chosen targets. Western intelligence agencies have long
suspected 17 November of acting at the behest of prominent left-wing
Greek politicians. The little that is known about the organisation is
that it is nationalistic, left wing and likes to issue rambling
communiques that quote Balzac. But in Washington and London it has long
been suspected of being the cats paw of a radicalised Greek
intelligence service, the GYP. Washington made its frustration's with
Athens clear in its most recent world terrorism survey, where it
stated: "The Greek government continues to make no headway in its
pursuit of Greek terrorists, in particular, the Revolutionary
Organisation 17 November that is responsible for numerous attacks
against US interests, including the murder of four US officials." Until
today's Observer revelations, a direct link between 17 November and the
Greek secret service had not been established. The Kurdish bomber Seydo
Hazar has told the Observer that:

17 November leaders work hand-in-glove with elements of the Greek
intelligence service.
Police were kept away from PKK training camps by 17 November leaders
who checked the identity of car numberplates with Greek officials.
Funds were obtained and distributed to the PKK by a retired naval
commander who lives on a military base and is a well-known sympathiser
of 17 November.
The organisation is the most feared group in Greece and often referred
to as the deadliest terrorist group in Europe. Since 1975 its members
have executed 21 people, without anyone being arrested, charged or
convicted. Indeed, a close analysis of 17 November's actions down the
years, points to a remarkable set of coincidences in which Greek
government interests are seen to have been furthered by individual
attacks.
The Observer's evidence directly implicates the 17 November in
sheltering the PKK by providing housing and training facilities for its
guerrillas.The PKK bomber has told the Observer that Kurdish agents
could not train and pass through Greece without direct government
backing. "The Greek intelligence service were organising the chemicals,
the high explosives, for example they were giving people in the
(Kurdish) "home office" Greek passports," Hazar said.

The name 17 November comes from the day in 1973 when the Greek Colonels
sent tanks and soldiers to smash a student uprising at Athens
Polytechnic University, killing 34 young people. It was Europe's
Tiananmen Square and out of it grew a terrorist organisation. Highly
nationalistic, the group is anti-Greek establishment, anti-US,
anti-Turkiye, anti-Nato; it is committed to removing US bases and the
Turkish military presence from Cyprus, and to severing Greece's ties to
Nato and the European Union. 17 November's operations are always
planned and carried of with military precision. First there is the
"hit", carried out with the same small collection of Colt. 45 and Smith
and Wesson revolvers. The Colt. 45 that dispatched the CIA man, Robert
Welch, in 1975 was used again last June to murder Cosfi Peraticos,
scion of a Greek shipping family, which bought the privatised Elefsis
Shipyards in 1992. British diplomats, businessmen and interests have
also been singled out by 17 November; most recently the HMS Ark Royal
which was targeted with rockets when it docked in Pireaus in 1994 with
a crew of 1,000. Heavy rain prevented the rockets detonating, but there
were other successful rocket attacks that day against American and
German interests.

The 17 November communiques, with a five-pointed star and the name
"17N", typically come from the same typewriter that issued the
movement's first proclamation in 1975 shortly before Welch's execution.
But again, the Greek authorities have never come up with any leads.
This summer, the US government renewed the reward for the capture and
conviction of 17 November terrorists (it is now worth $2 million),
implicated in the deaths of four Americans, injuries to 28 other
Americans and a rocket attack on the US embassy compound in February
1996. What distinguishes the 17 November from other terrorist
organisations is that in 22 years not a single member of the group has
been arrested. Indeed, the identity of no member of 17 November is said
to be known to Greek, American or European police and intelligence
agencies. It is a claim no other terrorist group can make.

1.INTRODUCTION
Greece, with its complex and problematic relationship with Turkiye, has
traditionally adopted a supportive attitude towards elements hostile to
Turkiye, inspired by the motto "my enemy's enemy is my friend". In view
of its long-standing policy to tolerate the activities of various
terrorist groups on its territory, Greece has readily extended its
hostility towards Turkiye into this domain. Greece's past record in its
fight against terrorism is most revealing. The findings of consecutive
annual reports on terrorism by the US State Department have not only
categorically described Greece "to be a venue for a large number of
international terrorist attacks", but also have underlined the failure
of the Greek governments in taking appropriate measures in combating
terrorism and the toleration shown to terrorist groups active against
Turkish interests. Taking into consideration Greece's disposition to
harm the interests of Turkiye, it was not a coincidence to witness the
escalation of terrorist attacks against Turkish targets including the
assassination of a large group of Turkish diplomats and other
government officials abroad by the infamous Armenian terrorist
organisation ASALA during the years following the Turkish intervention
in Cyprus in 1974, in the wake of the Greek coup d'état designed to
annex the island. Various interviews with members of the ASALA who took
part in the heinous murders of Turkish diplomats serve as an
eye-opener.

Greece provides facilities on its soil to the PKK, a notorious
terrorist organisation, in the form of providing shelter, training and
logistics for its activities aiming at the dismemberment of Turkiye.
Greece's support to the PKK dates back to the late 1980s. Each time
Turkiye voiced its resentment and concern for the support given by
Greece to the PKK, the Greek governments while denying the charges have
insisted on the need for Turkiye to prove its claims with concrete
evidence. Yet it is not easy at all for Turkiye to provide Greece with
such evidence since Turkiye does not, in contrast to the Greek
practice, conduct intelligence operations on another NATO country's
territory. Nevertheless, front organisations of the PKK have been given
permission to establish themselves and function in major cities of
Greece. Furthermore, abundant number of testimonies by the captured PKK
terrorists contain detailed accounts of the training that they have
been given in various camps in Greece and the logistical support that
they have been provided with. These constitute evidence, which cannot
be ignored. Greek governments have in the past made unconvincing
statements to condemn terrorism in a somewhat ambiguous fashion.
Besides, they have been careful not to condemn the PKK by any explicit
reference. After the arrival in Rome of Abdullah Ocalan, the ringleader
of the PKK, Greece came up in front to voice its sympathy for the
"Kurdish cause" and started to campaign for the convening of an
international conference to discuss the so-called "Kurdish question",
which it claimed to be a matter of great interest for Europe, while
underlining the systematic support of Greece to the rights of the Kurds
to their national self-determination. Although the official statements
insist that Greece does not allow the PKK to operate on its soil, the
undeniable facts prove the contrary. The latest example to a series of
incidents in that direction has been the recent visit to Athens of Kani
Yilmaz (also known as Faysal Dunlayici), a member of the PKK leadership
and its representative for Europe. During this visit, in an interview
to the Greek press, Yilmaz stated that he and the PKK support violence,
and that violence will be extended to the major cities of Turkiye such
as Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir. Greece has indicated publicly and
repeatedly in the past that it does not condone violence, and that it
does not allow any activity on its soil aimed at the use of force
against third countries. It remains as a legitimate question as to how
this official line of Greece is compatible with the fact that a PKK
representative for whom the Greek government has been duly notified by
an Interpol arrest warrant could have the freedom to travel to Greece
and to make statements inciting violence against Turkiye.

Greek involvement in terrorist activities is not restricted to the
provision of a propitious environment for the activities of the PKK
only. Turkish diplomats in Greece were the targets of numerous attacks
carried out by a terrorist organisation, "17 November", which resulted
in loss of life. Consecutive Greek governments have not traced this
organisation for more than two decades. Yet there have been repeated
speculations in the Greek press with respect to the structure,
composition and objectives of this organisation. The latest fatal
incident came just after a list of addresses and car license plate
numbers of the Turkish diplomats serving in Greece, which had been
communicated to the Greek security authorities, was published in the
Greek press.

There are a number of international instruments to which Greece is a
party and is under the obligation to combat and cooperate effectively
against terrorism. Greece is also duty bound according to the
agreements that it has signed not to permit terrorist organisations and
their affiliates to operate on its territory. Given its record Greece
is in blatant violation of these commitments.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising to see the name of Greece
being mentioned in connection with terrorism. Yet, it is known how
serious a threat terrorism constitutes for the contemporary world.
Increasingly violent acts of terrorist organisations and the ever
growing links between terrorism and organised crime such as drug
trafficking, money laundering, extortion and smuggling of people and
weapons point clearly to the need for concerted action in combating and
suppressing terrorism. In spite of the abundance of statements,
resolutions, conventions and other documents regarding co-operation
against terrorism adopted at various international fora, including the
United Nations, Council of Europe, NATO and the OSCE, a number of
countries, including Greece, persistently ignore their international
commitments in combating terrorism and do not refrain from lending
moral and material support to various terrorist organisations.

The pursuit of policy of hostility to Turkiye has long been a
misconceived cornerstone of Greek foreign policy. In the hope of taking
advantage of any instability that might be instigated in Turkiye, in
flagrant disregard of its obligations as a NATO member and under
international conventions, Greece has rendered encouragement and
support to the terrorist organisation PKK. In return, the notorious
head of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, does not miss any opportunity to
express openly his gratitude for the continuous sustenance its
organisation receives from Greece. In an interview published on 13
September 1998 in the Greek Cypriot daily Simerini, Ocalan took the
occasion "to pass his thanks to the Greek and (Greek) Cypriot people
for their devoted support" and noted that "only a joint combat would
bring about victory."

MEGA-TV, a Greek private TV station, broadcast an interview with Ocalan
on 15 September 1998, whereby the head of the PKK proposed a joint
military doctrine among the Middle Eastern countries, including Greece,
against Turkiye, similar to the one between Greece and the Greek
Cypriot Administration in South Cyprus. Ocalan also promised victory to
Greece in a possible Turco-Greek war, which he volunteered to command
and claimed that if the (Greek) Cypriots cooperated with the Kurdish
militants, the war would last for years.

These outrageous flirtations of the terrorist gang leader with Greece
and the Greek Cypriots preceded his escape from his long time hideout
in Syria in October 1998 in search of a new safe haven. It is revealing
to note that Athens was Ocalan's first preferred destination where he
went and sought political asylum. Providing sanctuary to such a
terrorist would have entailed a high price to pay for Greece by totally
exposing its policies in support of PKK terrorism. Therefore, Ocalan's
request was not granted, but ample support continued to flow to him
from Greece, notably from the ruling Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party
(PASOK), during the following episodes of Ocalan's flight first to the
Russian Federation through Athens, then to Italy and back to the
Russian Federation again.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the Greek support to the
PKK, which is a well established, but so far not a widely known fact.
This strange phenomenon - support given by a NATO member to a
separatist Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation against another NATO
member - deserves to be seriously studied because of the paradoxes it
creates and the questions it poses, in the first instance for Greece
itself as an EU and NATO member. In the following sections, the
evolution of Greece's PKK-inspired policy toward Turkiye is examined.
While it merits being the subject of a particular study, there are
unavoidable references in this paper to the Greek Cypriot
Administration in South Cyprus because of Greek Cypriot involvement and
support for terrorism along similar lines with Greece.

2. THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE PKK IN GREECE
The PKK carries out its activities in Greece through two ERNK (Kurdish
acronym of the PKK's propaganda wing, "National Liberation Front of
Kurdistan") offices, two "Kurdistan Committees", one "Kurdistan
Cultural Centre" and a "Kurdish Red Crescent Office", which are all
subsidiaries of this terrorist organisation. Through these so-called
offices, committees and centres the PKK has established in Greece a
network which serves its logistical and operational needs as well as
its propaganda in its terrorist campaign against Turkiye.

Due to its geographical position, Greece serves as a bridge in the
transit of PKK militants between Western Europe and the Middle East. In
this regard Greece plays for the PKK a role comparable to that of Syria
and territories under Syrian control where the head of the PKK and PKK
militants have for years benefited from the sanctuary and facilities
provided to them. Since the agreement reached between Turkiye and Syria
on 20 October 1998 in Adana, Turkiye, whereby Syria designated the PKK
as a terrorist organisation and undertook to eradicate PKK presence and
activities on its territory, Greece stands alone among the neighbours
of Turkiye where the PKK has an officially sanctioned free hand.

Greece is a country where the PKK militants are sheltered and given
terrorist training in safe-houses, in camps disguised as "Refugee
Treatment Centres" or "farmhouses" on a temporary basis for periods of
2-3 months. This is a very serious violation of international rules and
norms, involving the use of Greek territory by a terrorist organisation
to prepare acts of terror against its neighbour.

Ocalan is on record to have said that he and the leadership of the PKK
had been invited to relocate in Greece by the Papandreu Government. He
has added that geographically Greece would not be convenient for
conducting PKK activities in Turkiye, but that efforts would be
underway to establish PKK training camps in Greece and particularly in
South Cyprus by August 1994. This invitation must have left an
unforgettable mark in Ocarina's mind as it was Greece where he sought
sanctuary and political asylum when he was forced to leave Syria in
October 1998 and again when he was desperately seeking a safe haven for
himself in January 1999 before being squeezed out of Rome.

On 5 April 1994, the PKK was allowed to open a representative office of
its own in Athens, called "the ERNK representation in Athens and the
Balkans." The PKK banner was hoisted in front of this ERNK office. A
number of well-known Greek politicians attended the office's opening
ceremony, including Panayiotis Sgouridis, Deputy Speaker of the Greek
Parliament, and four other members of parliament -- Dimitrios
Vounatsos, Michaelis Galeneanos, Yiannis Spathopoulos and Maria Mahera
Haralambidis. A senior member of PASOK's Central Committee was also
present in the ceremony.

Greek officials have persistently attempted to depict the ERNK, the
facade behind which the PKK criminal network operates in Europe, as a
"Kurdish political organisation" with a view to concealing their
support to the terrorist organisation. In a 1988 document entitled "The
Mass Character of Our Party and Front", the PKK describes the duties of
the ERNK under ten headings. According to this illuminating document,
among other duties of the ERNK, special emphasis is placed upon issues
such as organising mass activities (raids, occupations,
demonstrations), recruiting militants to turn them into "fighters",
providing combat training to these terrorists, maintaining contacts
with other armed groups, gathering intelligence and creating financial
resources for the terrorist organisation through extortion, drug
trafficking and human smuggling. In PKK's own words, its militants are
"fighting under the flag of the ERNK and armed with the weapons of the
ARGK (the armed wing of the PKK).

Another ERNK office under the name of the so-called "Kurdistan
Solidarity Committee" has also been operating in Thessalonica (Egnatia
Street No.75) since 14 November 1994. This ERNK office has been active
in particular in organising PKK's propaganda campaigns.

These ERNK offices in Greece see no harm in even openly selling the
propaganda documents of the terror organisation and issuing receipts
printed under the name of ERNK, given in return for the so-called
"donations" that are in fact forcibly collected. Some have been mailed
also to the Turkish Embassy in Athens.

3. PKK'S ACTIVITIES IN GREECE
The head of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, said in an interview published by
the Greek daily "Eksusia" on 23 December 1998 the following: "...Greece
has played a great part in my decision to go to Europe. Let me put it
clearer: If there had not been my Greek friends, I would never have
been able to come to Europe...If we did not have this friendship with
Greece, I could not come to Europe...My friendship with Greece
encouraged me in making my decision to come to Europe... We opened a
gateway in Europe (meaning his arrival in Italy). If we succeed going
through this gateway, a political solution to the problem would then be
found. This would be a political success for Greece ... as well."

He also confirmed press reports that three members of the Greek
parliament, including Deputy Speaker Sgouridis, visited him in Rome. In
the same interview, Ocalan implied Greece's continuing support to the
PKK with the following words: "Greece has always supported us
morally... By allowing us to sell the magazines, which we publish in
Greece, it is also lending support to us economically..."

a. Media and Propaganda Activities
In Greece, two propaganda magazines, the "Kurdish Report" and "Foni Tu
Kurdistan" - Kurdistan's Voice, are published by the PKK in Greek.
Apart from these two magazines, books, pamphlets and leaflets handbills
are also published in Athens mostly in Arabic, to be sent to Syria.
Recently, the PKK has begun to publish in Greece two new magazines
called "Al Aouge" and "El Evch", both in Arabic, and to distribute them
in Syria, Lebanon and northern Iraq for propaganda purposes. Besides
the above mentioned PKK publications, the Greek press itself is
inundated with articles, interviews, comments and reports openly
supporting the terrorist organisation PKK and even calling for action
against Turkiye.
The PKK was allowed to engage in extensive propaganda activities
against Turkish tourism in Greece in the summer of 1993. PKK posters
asking tourists not to travel to Turkiye were displayed all around
Athens. A PKK militant, calling himself the spokesman of the ERNK, held
a press conference in the island of Samos and openly called for a
boycott on travel to Turkiye. Such campaigns of the PKK against Turkish
tourism continue unabated, and are bolstered by certain Greek quarters
that hope to benefit from the possible negative consequences PKK's
anti-Turkish propaganda might inflict on Turkiye's image abroad.

b. Militant Training Camps
PKK militants have been trained in Greece on sabotage techniques and
the use of explosives for conducting terrorist attacks in Turkiye.
These training programs covering periods of 2-3 months have been
carried out with the moral and material support of the Greek
authorities. Following the training provided to groups of 50-70
militants in the camps located mostly in mountainous areas, PKK
terrorists are sent to Turkiye illegally for conducting acts of terror.
Since mid-1994, many PKK militants apprehended in Turkiye have
confessed that they were trained in matters of bomb attacks and
sabotage in these camps in Greece with the help of Greek authorities.
According to the testimonies of the PKK terrorists, one of these
training camps is located in the Psahna district of Evia Island to the
north of Athens, and the other one is based around Lepenu village,
north of the town of Agrinion. Other than those temporary camps
mentioned above, the PKK terrorists mostly coming from various European
countries are provided with theoretical training on
"political-military" subjects at the "Lavrion Refugee Camp" and in the
PKK safe-houses in Athens. Greece has allowed the PKK to use the
"Lavrion Refugee Camp" for planning its terrorist acts and organising
its "fund-raising" activities. The PKK terrorists captured in Turkiye
have independently provided detailed maps and diagrams of these camps
(Appendix 1). One of the most striking cases of Greek involvement in
the PKK's militant training activity came in 1994 and early in 1995.
Police in Istanbul and Izmir arrested groups of PKK militants who were
preparing to attack tourist resorts in Turkiye. It quickly became clear
that the terrorists had been trained as "urban militants" in Greece in
a camp near Athens.

c. Fund-raising
The fund raising activities of the PKK in Greece are mostly carried out
with the help of Greek parliamentarians and other circles supporting
the PKK. Illegal immigration to Europe via Greece from third world
countries has long become one of the lucrative sources of finance for
the terrorist organisation PKK, which is actively involved in almost
every stage of this "modern art" of human smuggling. Extortion of money
from asylum seekers and illegal immigrants during their temporary stay
in Greece's "refugee treatment camps" is also another pitiless method
of fund-raising of the PKK.
Brian Murphy of the Associated Press has reported, in an article
entitled "Kurdish Rivalries Boil Over at Key Stop in Refugee Trail,"
published in the Greek daily Athens News on 11 August 1998, that the
Greek government acquiesced in the PKK militants using the Iraqi
Kurdish camps in the country as centres for fund-raising and propaganda
activities. Based on interviews conducted in the "Kurdish" refugee camp
in Patras, Greece, Mr. Murphy has pointed to the Iraqi Kurds' claim
that they have been forced to pay "PKK taxes" and "protection money"
while they waited for political asylum or transfer to another European
country. Mr. Murphy has indicated that PKK members who demand
commissions from the profits of the human smugglers and beat or murder
those who refuse to cooperate reportedly pressured many Kurds in the
camp into submission.

Donations of various Greek circles and sale of propaganda publications
are also among the sources of income of the PKK.

4. GREEK AUTHORITIES' SUPPORT TO THE PKK

a. Government and Other Authorities
A multitude of contacts were carried out between the head of the PKK
Abdullah Ocalan, Stationed in Syria and the Bekaa valley in Lebanon,
and the Greek administration during the 1981- 89 Papandreu Government.
For instance, a Greek delegation, comprising parliamentarians, press
members and Prime Minister Papandreu's adviser Mr. Haralambidis,
visited Ocalan in Lebanon on 17-19 October 1988. Mr. Papandreu was an
extremely negative factor in Turkish-Greek relations, responsible for
charting a confrontational course and fomenting hostility between the
two nations. A terrorist organisation such as the PKK was a perfect
tool that could serve these radical Greek policies. The policy of
collaboration with the PKK, created during Papandreu's premiership, was
maintained and reinforced through the succeeding New Democracy and
PASOK administrations. Courting, encouraging and supporting PKK
terrorism became a permanent fixture of Greek policies. As time went
by, such support from Greece to the PKK became more vocal and more
visible. Press statements by Government Spokesman Venizelos and Deputy
Foreign Minister Pangalos, following the crackdown on the PKK in France
and Germany in 1993, were extremely detrimental to the common fight
against terrorism. These two Greek officials referred to PKK terrorism
as "a struggle for independence", displaying an irresponsible and
inadmissible attitude by any standards.
Three months later, Greek authorities permitted the PKK to open a
"Kurdish Red Crescent Society" in Athens, whose stated objective was to
"offer medical treatment to Kurdish guerrillas wounded in the
continuing war in Turkish Kurdistan and to help the spouses and
children of Kurdish guerrillas held in Turkish prisons."

On 8 July 1993, the Greek government permitted the ERNK to hold a
provocating press conference on Cos, one of the Dodecanese Islands only
a few miles from the Turkish coast. Several observations on Greece's
refugee policy would also be in order. Greece has its own arbitrary
criteria for treating illegal migrants asking for asylum. In this
context, it accepts on its territory those terrorists, fugitives and
other people especially of Kurdish origin coming from Turkiye, whom it
believes, can be manipulated for its propaganda activities against
Turkiye. At the same time, it deports immigrants and asylum seekers
coming from countries like Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
This inhumane Greek policy is a blatant violation of the fundamental
principles of international law, which regulate the rules of a just
treatment for asylum seekers, but, at the same time, categorically deny
to terrorists the right of asylum. This is true particularly for the
provisions of "The United Nations General Assembly Resolutions on
Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism" and the "European
Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism." Greek Government's support
for the PKK reached its peak point on 30 April 1998, when the PKK was
allowed to open an "official" representation in the centre of Athens,
called "PKK Representation of Balkans." The opening ceremony was
"honoured" by the participation of MPs from both the government and the
main opposition parties. This was the first time that the PKK had
opened an official representation under its own name in any country.
The Greek authorities deny that such a representation bureau was
opened, but the evidence clearly indicates otherwise.

During the latest crisis with Italy over Ocalan that was triggered by
the arrest of PKK's head in Rome on 12 November 1998, government
officials, almost all political parties and the media in Greece called
on the Italian authorities to reject Turkiye's demand for the
extradition of Ocalan and to grant him political asylum. The Government
Spokesman Mr. Dimitris Reppas stated on 14 November 1998 that "Greece
has systematically supported the right of the Kurds to their
self-determination", making null and void all the previous Greek
statements on respect for Turkiye's territorial integrity. George
Papandreou, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, asserted in Rome on
17 November 1998 that "the crisis over Ocalan is not a problem of Italy
but that of Europe" and called on the European Union to act in
solidarity and cooperation with Italy on this issue, while Stelios
Papathemelis, PASOK Deputy and former Minister of Public Order, hoped
that "the Italian government will not yield to the unbelievable demands
of certain countries, which, motivated by intrinsic Turkophile
sentiments, want to try a fighter as though he was a terrorist or a
murderer." Furthermore, the Minister of Defence Akis Tsohatzopoulos
expressed his hope that Ocalan's request for political asylum from the
Italian authorities will pave the way to "the political settlement of
the Kurdish question."

The words of Greek Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, George Nicolaidis, in
his interview published by the Riyadh Daily on 8 December 1998, leave
no room for doubt with regard to Greek official attitude to the PKK
terrorism: "...PKK is a political organisation and also a military one.
It fights for the liberation of Kurdistan. So, it is a liberation
movement. It has a political office in Greece, which, you know, is a
free country..." With these words, Ambassador Nicolaidis also
acknowledged unequivocally the presence of the terrorist organisation
PKK in Greece. Among Ocalan's lawyers, there are also two Greeks,
Thrasinoulos Kontaksis and Yeorgios Adamapoulos. According to these
lawyers who expressed their views in the Greek daily Eleftherotipia on
3 January 1999, "it is the Turkish State, but not Ocalan, that is to be
labelled as terrorist". One of them, Kontaksis, in the same interview
that upon Ocalan's arrival in Rome, "PKK's Balkans Representation" in
Athens contacted him to ask "his legal advice with regard to the
presence of President (Ocalan) in Italy." These words of Kontaksis
revealed unambiguously once again the fact that contrary to the
persistent denials of Greek authorities; the PKK has a presence in
Athens under the name of "representation" which operates without any
restriction.

At an annual Foreign Press Association luncheon held on 26 November
1998, Prime Minister Simitis claimed that the PKK is an "organisation
fighting for the rights of the Kurdish minority and using various means
to reach this end." Mr. Simitis also said, "Greece is in favour of
political asylum being given to Ocalan. Italy has handled the matter
properly". These words can be considered as nothing but an unambiguous
attempt of the Greek Government to justify PKK terrorism which has
resulted, to date, in the death of thousands of people, including many
civilians mostly of Kurdish origin in Turkiye.

On 22 December 1998, Greek Foreign Minister Pangalos participated in a
demonstration at Lavrion camp, one of the main terrorist training
facilities of the PKK in Greece. On this occasion Mr. Pangalos made a
speech at the camp, full of baseless accusations against Turkiye, in
front of PKK demonstrators carrying photographs of Ocalan and posters
against Turkiye's national unity and territorial integrity. Mr.
Pangalos did not refrain from instigating the crowd against Turkiye
with the following words: "The great powers, which had recently decided
on pressing the trigger (British backed American air strikes against
Iraq), do not show the same sensitivity on the right to a free life of
Kurdish people on its own territory..."

b. Parliamentarians and Political Parties
On 20 March 1992, a group of Greek politicians held a joint press
conference with ERNK militants in the Bekaa valley in Lebanon. The
group included three members of the Greek Parliament belonging to PASOK
(the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party of Mr.Andreas Papandreou) Lefteros
Varivakis, Dimitrios Vounatsos and Elizabeth Papazoi. The group also
paid a call on Ocalan. The Greek government gave its permission for the
press conference to take place, thereby implicitly giving the
terrorists an opportunity to announce that they would be targeting
tourist resorts in Turkiye. Similar declarations have been issued
periodically. For example, on 11 March 1996, Greek television broadcast
an interview with the PKK gang leader Abdullah Ocalan by Panos
Panayotopoulos. During the interview, Ocalan repeatedly threatened to
attack tourists and tourism companies in order to damage the Turkish
tourism industry and advised "foreign tourists not to go to Turkiye. If
they do, the PKK cannot be held responsible."
In February 1993, a second group of Greek Parliamentarians attended the
self-styled Kurdish diaspora assembly in Brussels. They reportedly
"exchanged views with the Kurds on the subject of genocide committed by
the Turkish Army."

On 20-21 September 1994, Greek parliamentarians held another meeting
with PKK representatives. Three PASOK deputies, Costas Badouvas,
Dimitrios Vounatsos and Hristos Kipouros, travelled to the Bulgarian
capital, Sofia, to attend a pro-PKK meeting. With them travelled a
retired admiral and well-known PKK supporter, Naksakis and Dimitrios
Martos, the representative of the "League for People's Rights and
Liberation." Once again the Greek deputies publicly affirmed their
solidarity with the PKK.

In November 1994, Kani Yilmaz, "PKK's representative in Europe", was
arrested in London. On 17 November 1994, 22 Greek deputies signed a
joint letter circulated in other European capitals, denouncing the
arrest.

Early in 1995, the PKK moved to set up a self-styled "Kurdistan
Parliament in Exile." On 12 April 1995, the PKK organised a meeting in
The Hague to launch the so-called "parliament" with the participation
of seven members of the Greek Parliament - Dimitrios Vounatsos (PASOK),
Yiannis Statopoulos (PASOK), Costas Badouvas (PASOK), Leonardos
Harziandrou (PASOK), Nicholas Conomipoulos, Payiotis Camenos (PASOK)
and Petros Taulis.

On 26-29 June 1995, Yasar Kaya, the titular head of PKK's self-styled
"Kurdistan Parliament in Exile", visited Athens with two of his
supporters. They were given an official welcome and received by
Panayiotis Sgouridis, the Deputy Speaker of the Greek Parliament. Some
Greek parliamentarians once again met with the PKK members in Syria on
12 June 1995. This time the delegation consisted of the representatives
of all the mainstream Greek political parties and was headed by the
Deputy Speaker of the Greek Parliament. The delegation expressed its
support for the "PKK's struggle" and awarded Ocalan a plaque.
Photographs of the meeting, published in the Turkish daily newspaper
Milliyet in July 1995, depicted one of the Greek deputies presenting
Ocalan with a blue flag symbolising Greece's territorial aspirations
against Macedonia. A second picture showed Ocalan with one of the other
Greek deputies in front of a map portraying alternative routes for the
proposed oil pipeline from the Caspian basin to the Turkish
Mediterranean coast.

Mihalis Haralambidis, a member of the Central Executive Board of PASOK,
said the following in a speech he delivered during a conference held
for "National Day" on 25 March 1997: "In order to solve the Kurdish
issue, it is necessary for Greece to spend efforts to hold a 'European
Kurdish conference' and for the Greek Government to invite Ocalan
officially."

With the initiative of Mr. Haralambidis, 110 (afterwards this number
increased to 178) deputies of the Greek Parliament signed a joint
letter on 11 April 1997, addressed to the President of the Parliament,
requesting that Abdullah Ocalan be invited to visit Greece. The letter
contained glowing praise to Ocalan. In response, Ocalan sent a letter
to Mr. Haralambidis, thanking him for the invitation.

In this context, the participation of a Greek parliamentary delegation
headed by Deputy Speaker Sgouridis, along with his several other
colleagues in the third anniversary meeting of the so-called,
self-proclaimed "Kurdish Parliament in Exile," the propaganda wing of
the PKK, constitutes another example of the support given by the Greek
Parliament to the PKK. In that meeting, held on 12 April 1998, Mr.
Sgouridis and other members of Greek Parliament made speeches
reaffirming their support to and solidarity with the PKK. Costas
Badouvas, Greek MP and former minister, made a speech during a PKK-led
demonstration in Rotterdam on 12 September 1998 and held that "Kurdish
people's struggle", which he claimed was gaining momentum, would not be
defeated. Mr. Badouvas also wanted Turkiye to respond to PKK's
so-called cease-fire calls.

On 12 November 1998, Ocalan was arrested in Rome on his arrival from
Moscow. PASOK MP Badouvas went to Rome on 13 November 1998 to present
Ocalan with a letter, which had been signed by 109 Greek MPs, inviting
the terrorist to Greece. In the letter, which was also signed by three
deputy speakers of the Greek Parliament, Ocalan was referred to as "the
legitimate representative of the most repressed people of the world
standing between liberation and genocide."

Furthermore, some PASOK MPs, academics, artists and journalists
established "the Committee of Solidarity with the Kurdish Leader",
aimed at supporting Ocalan's application for political asylum in Italy.

c. Local Authorities and Other Circles
In 1994, the pro-PKK campaign inside Greece went a stage further. A
non-governmental organisation called "The League for People's Rights
and Liberation" launched a "campaign for solidarity with the Kurdish
people" with the stated aim of collecting 200 million Drachmas (US$
885,000) as financial support for "Kurdistan's struggle".
In addition to these initiatives, the Governor of Korfu, Andreas
Pangratis, sent a letter to the Greek Government on 30 May 1997, in
which he stated that he supported the initiatives of the Greek deputies
to invite the head of the PKK to Greece, and that in case Ocalan came
to Korfu, they would be pleased to host him and to organise in Korfu a
Europe-wide conference on Kurds. The Greek authorities also permitted
the PKK to hold a meeting in Thessalonica from 19 to 21 September 1997,
organised by the Kurdistan Solidarity Committee and called "an
international festival of peace and solidarity with the Kurdish
people," at which the PKK engaged in propaganda for its terrorist
activities. Greek officials, including the Governor of Thessalonica and
representatives of political parties, participated in the so-called
festival.

According to the Greek press news of 15 September 1998, Dilan (Semsin
Kiliç), known as "PKK/ERNK's representative in the Balkans",
participated in the panel organised by the Municipality of Veria,
Greece, and the "Kurdish Solidarity Committee" and put out anti-Turkish
statements such as the following: "Our war has been serving the
interests of the peoples of the region. Escalating this war will make a
positive contribution to the peaceful coexistence of the Kurds, the
Turks, the Armenians, the Hellenes of Pontus and other peoples..." At
the meeting Mihalis Haralambidis, member of PASOK's Central Committee,
claimed that the rapprochement between the Greeks and the Kurds could
be achieved only after the liberation of "the peoples of Asia Minor".

On 7 December 1998, the Sikies Municipality of Thessalonica issued a
communiqué, forwarded to the Greek Government and Parliament, in which
it called for granting Ocalan the right of political asylum and asked
the Greek Government to take all necessary initiatives to bring to the
international platform the issue of recognition of Kurdish people's
right of having their own territory.

5. INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS AND PRESS REPORTS
In view of all this, it comes as no surprise to read in a report on the
"Patterns of Global Terrorism," published annually by the U.S. State
Department that Greece is "a venue for a large number of international
terrorist attacks." The report comments that "the Greek authorities
made little progress against terrorist groups in 1994, in part due to
ambivalent Government attitudes toward counter-terrorism. Greece still
lacks a new anti-terrorism law to replace legislation repealed in 1993
by the in-coming PASOK Government." The 1996 issue of the report,
published in April 1997, continues to include the PKK among the main
international terrorist organisations and goes on to say that "
....Greek Government also continues to tolerate the official presence in
Athens of two Turkish terrorist groups- the National Liberation Front
of Kurdistan, which is the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK), and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front
(DHKP/C) -- formerly Devrimci Sol -- which is responsible for the
murder of two US Government contractors in Turkiye..." It should be
emphasised in this regard that the PKK and the DHKP/C are among the
four top terrorist groups that conducted 51 percent of all
international terrorist attacks in 1996 and they also accounted for 60
percent of international terrorist activities in 1995. The PKK and the
DHKP/C together were responsible for almost 25 percent of all the
international terrorist activities in the same year. As seen from these
figures, the activities of the PKK terrorist organisation extend far
beyond Turkiye.
The Observer in its 28 September 1997 issue, published an interview
entitled "Poison Bomber Offers Secrets for Sanctuary" wherein a member
of the PKK, named Seydo Hazar, revealed from his hideout in Greece the
secret plans of the terrorist organisation and its connections with the
Greek Government and other terrorist groups. The following are some of
the highlights of the information revealed by PKK member Seydo Hazar
whose identity and terrorist connections have been verified by a number
of security sources in Europe:

11 Stinger missiles, manufactured under license in Greece were sold by
the PKK group in Greece to the Tamil Tigers subsequently used to shoot
down military transport planes over Sri Lanka.
The PKK is protected by the shadowy Greek Marxist revolutionary
organisation 17 November and funded by elements close to the Greek
security service while preparing terrorist attacks in London and those
targeted at European tourists in Turkiye.
The 17 November leaders work hand-in-glove with elements of the Greek
intelligence service.
The 17 November has been involved with the PKK in training militants in
Greece for missions in Turkiye.
The Greek intelligence service is giving the PKK militants 'home
office' and Greek passports.
Greek police are kept away from PKK training camps by the 17 November
leaders who check the identity of car numberplates with Greek
officials.
A retired Greek Naval officer who lives on a military base and is a
well-known sympathiser of the 17 November pays all the PKK militants'
expenses in Greece and even acts as an informal censor of their
magazine, the "Voice of Kurdistan".
The terrorist PKK also has links with the German neo-Nazis, the Tamil
Tigers and the Hamas organisation. It has also a liaison officer in
Damascus dedicated to working with Hamas."
As can be seen from the above-mentioned revelations, Seydo Hazar, a PKK
terrorist, states that he and his group were protected and supported by
the Greek security services and the Greek terror organisation known as
17 November, the latter having staged numerous attacks against Turkish
and other foreign diplomats and installations in Athens since 1974,
claiming many lives and inflicting material damage. As a unique case in
the international arena, none of the members of this organisation have
ever been identified, let alone captured, raising serious question
marks as to its roots.
The Observer's interview is only a confirmation of what is already
known. Not surprisingly, the Greek government denied The Observer
reporting claiming that: "everything mentioned in the report is false,
unsubstantiated and made up." Nevertheless, it was learnt that,
following the revelations of Seydo Hazar, the Greek Intelligence
Service began to apply pressure on PKK members in order to make them
observe strict secrecy. The campsite at the Psahna town in Evia Island
was evacuated on 13 November 1997, as were the safe-houses near Athens
used by the PKK members, with the help of PASOK MP Badouvas.

There is substantial evidence shared within the Interpol mechanisms
underlining the fact that the PKK is actively involved in human
trafficking as well as other organised crimes. A striking example of
the PKK involvement in human trafficking was given in the "Report"
program aired by the German ARD television channel on 19 January 1998
which included statements by a gang member convicted of human
trafficking. In his own words, the convict said: "Our organisation in
not directly linked with the PKK, but on several occasions we had to
pay ransom to the PKK in order to do our job. The PKK itself is also
involved in human trafficking. In Greece there is no permission to the
others. My organisation can only smuggle people into Greece, but from
Greece onwards, it is exclusively a PKK job."

Another international press report on the Greek support to PKK
terrorism was published in the 30 March 1998 issue of TIME magazine
entitled "A Hellenic Haven: The flight of Kurdish refugees to Greece
adds to a cycle of violence and vengeance". The report explains in
detail how the vicious terrorist organisation, the PKK, has been given
in Greece a free hand in recruiting and training new cadres and in
planning its terrorist activities. The text of the TIME article is in
Press Review.

6. TESTIMONIES OF PKK MILITANTS EXPOSING THE GREEK INVOLVEMENT IN PKK
TERRORISM
Testimonies of PKK militants apprehended in Istanbul and Izmir at the
end of 1994 and the beginning of 1995 revealed that the terrorists were
trained in a camp near Athens before they were sent to Turkiye to
organize violent attacks on tourist installations. PKK militants,
Sakine Dönmez, Atilla Kaya and Abdurrahman Yaruk, caught after a bomb
attack on Istanbul's famous covered bazaar, Kapaliçarsi, on 2 April
1994, causing several deaths, confessed that they were trained in
explosives in Greece. Testimonies of other PKK terrorists apprehended
in Turkiye confirmed undeniably the previous revelations. According to
these testimonies, PKK members are given "political" and "military
training" at two camps within 200 kilometres of Athens -- the Lavrion
Refugee Camp and the Lamia-Halkida Camp -- where PKK members have been
sheltered and trained to use explosives and firearms.
Dozens of PKK militants arrested in Turkiye have unveiled that former
Greek military officers have trained them in explosives and military
tactics in camps near Athens. In June 1997, the Greek Cypriot press
published photographs of a retired Greek Admiral training PKK
terrorists at a camp in northern Iraq. There are also several reports
stating that PKK members are serving as agents of the Greek
Intelligence Service, acting on its behalf against Turkiye.

The confessions made by PKK militant Fethi Demir, who surrendered to
the Turkish security forces on 6 March 1998, and by Semdin Sakik, PKK's
"second man", who was captured in northern Iraq in April 1998, have
exposed that the Greek support to PKK terrorism goes far beyond what
was formerly known. Excerpts from the testimonies of PKK terrorists on
the Greek support given to the terrorist organisation are at Appendix
2.

7. CONCLUSION
Terrorism has been universally condemned and, under the relevant
international agreements, all countries have committed themselves to
combating and cooperating effectively against terrorism. They have
undertaken not to permit their territories to be used by terrorist
organisations. There is no doubt that Greece is in blatant violation of
its commitments.
A study on terrorism and organised crime entitled "Terrorism And
Organised Crime: Preparing NATO For Future Security Threats", made by
Mr. Larry C.Johnson and Ambassador Morris D.Busby, concluded that
"...Less well known but more disturbing is the support that Greece, a
member of NATO, has given to the PKK. The Deputy Speaker of the Greek
Parliament, accompanied by several colleagues, visited PKK leader
Ocalan at his headquarters in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in June 1995. A
similar visit was made in the summer of 1997. In addition, 110 members
of the Greek Parliament and the Deputy Speaker called for PKK leader
Ocalan to be officially invited to Athens. Dozens of PKK operatives
arrested in Turkiye claim former Greek military officers at camps near
Athens trained them in explosives and military tactics. In June of
1997, the Greek Cypriot press published photos of a retired Greek
Admiral training PKK terrorists at a camp in northern Iraq. There also
are several press reports that PKK members are agents of the Greek
Intelligence Service, acting on its behalf against Turkiye. In
addition, PKK front groups operate openly in Greece and members of the
ruling party, PASOK, have met on several occasions with PKK leaders...

Put in less diplomatic terms, the government of Greece either turns a
blind eye to the activities of the PKK on its soil or in the worst case
actively supports the PKK with training and logistics. According to US
Government sources. which spoke on the condition of not being
identified, Greece deserved to be included with Iran and Syria as a
sponsor of terrorism, but US political considerations have precluded
this sanction.

In the past, the issue of Greek support of the PKK appears to have been
widely viewed as an extension of the long-standing political dispute
between two NATO members. This situation is awkward for NATO and is
usually only dealt with in unavoidable circumstances. However, given
the PKK's terrorist and criminal activities throughout Europe, it poses
a real threat to the security of several NATO members. Indeed. the PKK
probably is the major terrorist and organised crime threat to NATO. At
a minimum, NATO should call on the member nations to cooperate in
reducing or removing this threat through collective action. In
addition, NATO should convene a plenary session to review and discuss
the threat the PKK represents in Europe. Such a forum would permit
close scrutiny of Greece's policy of supporting a terrorist group while
focusing NATO members on the meatier issue of taking collective action
to confront a new kind of threat."

These are far from being the full story. But all the available
information unmistakably sheds light on the extent of the Greek policy
of hostility towards Turkiye, a policy that has been stretched to the
point of trying to undermine Turkiye's stability by supporting the
terrorist activities of the PKK.

EPILOGUE
As this publication shedding light on the background of Greek
involvement with PKK terrorism went into print, unfolding events
totally exposed the protection and physical sanctuary provided by
Greece to Abdullah Ocalan. It was established that despite persistent
official Greek denials, Ocalan was in fact brought to Athens at the end
of January 1999 under the knowledge of the Greek Government which also
arranged the safe passage of this terrorist to Africa and harboured him
in the Greek Embassy in Nairobi from 2 to 16 February 1999 while
concealing his identity from the Government of Kenya. This shocking
behaviour is a unique case of flagrant contravention of international
law and rules of international conduct, in particular among members of
NATO and the European Union, which deals a serious blow to the standing
and credibility of Greece as a law abiding state.
This further episode of Greek involvement in PKK terrorism will be
dealt with in greater detail in a separate publication. The readers
will find in the final pages on this publication self explanatory
material originating from Greece itself and the Government of Kenya in
order to bring to light the dark and unacceptable role played by Greece
to help the head of a brutal terrorist organisation which has claimed
thousands of lives in Turkiye escape justice.

PRESS REVIEW
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE
April 1997
PATTERNS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM 1996 - GREECE

"The Greek Government also continues to tolerate the official presence
in Athens of two Turkish terrorist groups-the National Liberation Front
of Kurdistan, which is the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK), and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party / Front
(DHKP/C)- formerly Devrimci Sol-which is responsible for the murder of
two US Government contractors in Turkiye."
THE OBSERVER
28 September 1997
THE ONLY WAY TO BEAT TERRORISM

It may not be the end of history, but the era of states waging war as a
means of settling conflicts is receding. Violence, instead, is becoming
the preserve of terrorist organisations prepared to use any means to
achieve ends that cannot be reached by peaceful methods. Their capacity
to destabilise governments is huge - so the temptation for these
governments' enemies to do business with them is ever present. Worse,
the march of technology makes the efficiency of the weapon systems
available to them ever more terrifying.
Our disclosure today that the Kurdish PKK separatist group has
ambitions to use poison bombs against tourists and British interests is
part of this wider picture. It is extremely disturbing. European
governments are committed to fighting terrorism together but, as we
reveal, some groups have been able to operate within Greece. Worse, it
appears some elements in the Greek secret service have connived in the
PKK's operations and are alleged to have offered funding. This is a
grave charge, but the evidence of our informant, and Greece's failure
to deal with the 17 November terrorist group, requires more than ritual
denials.

The story of Seydo Hazar offers evidence that terrorists can produce
homemade nerve agents like sarin or biological weapons, which utilise
deadly bacteria. The way they go about it of course cannot be kept a
secret. It is already available in patent offices and on the Internet.
Theory, it seems, has too easily been allowed to become practice.

The new upward ratchet in the terrorist threat to civilians is
alarming. But so are the close links, previously only speculation,
between German neo-Nazi, the PKK, Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the
Palestinian Hamas Organisation. Weapons are being traded between groups
with murderous results.

National rivalries have no place in the joint fight against terrorists.
This lesson has to be learned above all in Greece, where a
faction-riven secret service seems to bear some responsibility for
exposing citizens to PKK terrorists-its rivalry with Turkiye persuading
wilder fringes of its secret services to sponsor the cell on the
principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend. Our evidence shows its
assurances to the United States that these activities would stop are
not seen as credible. The US has threatened sanctions if Greece does
not fulfil its responsibilities. Now Greece's European Union and Nato
partners must reinforce the message.

THE OBSERVER
THE REPENTANT TERRORIST BOMBER ON THE RUN HAS NO PLACE TO HIDE
Shyam Bhatia on the Greek Island of Naxos meets a fearful Kurd who
predicts a wave of terror across Europe.
For the past four weeks a dark young man in blue shorts and green
bandanna has wandered the Greek islands, trading jokes with the German
and Scandinavian tourists who throng the Aegean at summer's end. None
guessed that Seydo Hazar is a desperate man who fears death at the
hands of the terrorists he served as a bomb-maker, who imagines an
executioner in every bar and hotel corridor, and wants to trade his
secrets for a new life.

He sits on the bed of his simple hotel room on the island of Naxos and
talks of a career that has resulted, he says, in the murder of 60
fellow Kurds and of a young woman killed when one of his bombs exploded
in the Turkish holiday resort of Bodrum in July. He warns of a ruthless
new round of terrorist attacks aimed at tourists, including Britons
which may involve chemical weapons.

He chain-smokes and his dark hooded eyes glance restlessly round the
room. His paranoia is infectious. He catches my arm and, saying we are
both in mortal danger, insists that we toss a coin to decide who goes
through the door first.

The patio outside is empty, but he regards the most innocent encounter
with suspicion. When South African holidaymakers invite us to join them
for a drink, he looks petrified and scurries away. Only when he is
reassured that they are tourists does he join us briefly to watch the
dusk descend on the island that has given him brief sanctuary but no
peace.

In the past 48 hours he has managed to leave Greece and is now believed
to be hiding for his own safety somewhere in Western Europe. He
contacted the Observer through an Irish intermediary, insisting he
wanted to reveal how his former terrorist masters had now switched
their targets to civilians, and that a new wave of atrocities was
planned to begin as early as next month.

His identity and terrorist connections have been verified by a number
of security sources in Europe.

The story of how Hazar, 31, became involved with what is reputed to be
one of the deadliest terrorist organisations in the world has elements
of the classic Faustian bargain. The master from whom he is fleeing is
the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK.

Since the early Seventies, this Marxist-Leninist group has sought a
separate Kurdish state in southeast Turkiye. Its reputation is that it
uses terror without compunction, settles its own internal quarrels with
summary violence and controls many of Europe's drug cartels.

He believes he is being hunted by two other deadly enemies. The first
is the little known but highly dangerous 17 November left-wing Greek
terrorist group, which he says has been involved with the PKK in
training Kurds in Greece for missions in Turkiye. In 1975 it murdered
the CIA's Athens station chief, Richard Welch, and it has since killed
about 20 more people, including three other American officials, two
diplomats from Turkiye and 13 Greeks.

The other enemy is the Greek secret service, the GYP (pronounced Kip),
which stands to be seriously embarrassed by Hazar's disclosures. It has
been waging a secret war against Greece's traditional enemies, the
Turks, by helping the Kurds with their bomb making and weapons
training.

THE OBSERVER
28 September 1997
POISON BOMBER OFFERS SECRETS FOR SANCTUARY
Fugitive Kurdish terrorist reveals
by Shyam Bhatla Naxos and Leonard Doyle.
ONE OF THE world's most dangerous bombers has revealed that terrorist
groups on three continents have developed poison bombs to attack
civilians-in an extraordinary confession to the Observer from a secret
hideout in Greece...
....Seydo Hazar, 31, says he and his group were protected by the shadowy
Greek Marxist Revolutionary Organisation 17 November and funded by
elements close to the Greek security services while preparing terrorist
outrages in London and on European tourists...
....Western intelligence agencies are taking the allegations
seriously...
....Hazar has gone public because he is disgusted by the targeting of
civilians by a splinter group of the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK)...
....His claims provide the most complete picture yet of the close
collaboration between international terrorist organisations, as well as
disturbing evidence that one NATO power may have been harbouring
militants from a group waging a war against the government of another
NATO member.
....11 Stinger missiles, manufactured under licence in Greece, were sold
by his group to the Tamil Tigers and subsequently used to shoot down
military transport planes over Sri Lanka...
....He says that the splinter unit of the PKK in Greece has the means to
destroy entire population centres, as well as contaminating beaches and
fresh produce in pursuit of their deadly aims...
....when he lived in a PKK safe house in the village of Drosia (Greece),
he left behind a large cache of explosives, including TNT and Amonal,
as well as the precursors for chemical and biological agents. These
include the nerve agent sarin and laboratory facilities for producing
the E-coli and botulism bacterias...
.... The allegation that Athens has been turning a blind eye to PKK
guerrillas using its territory for training and crossing to Kurdish
frontline areas has surfaced before, only to he flatly denied in Athens
as Turkish propaganda.

On Friday, the Observer gave the Greek government the specific
locations of the two sites identified by the bomber as the weapons
dumps. As turned out, PKK arms had already been discovered at one of
the locations and three people taken away for questioning. There were
no arrests, however...

....The US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is also understood to
have raised the question of Greece's support for Kurdish militants on
her most recent visit to Athens. In confirmation hearings before
Congress, Washington's incoming ambassador to Greece, Nicholas Burns,
put the war against terrorism as a top priority.
"They said so many innocent Kurds had died, it made no difference if
innocent Turkish and foreign civilians died as well"
.... According to Hazar, a retired Greek naval officer pays all the
Kurds' expenses in Greece and even acts as an informal censor of their
newspaper, Voice of Kurdistan, 'so as not to spoil the good relations
between Greeks and Kurds'.
.....and regional ally. Last year the US formally warned Greece, a
fellow Nato member, that if these activities continued it might be
declared a 'state sponsor of international terrorism'.
....To avoid harsh US economic sanctions, Greece was reported to have
given assurances that PKK activities would be curtailed and its bases
and training camps in Greece closed....
.....He does not deny suggestions that he was picked up and trained by
the secret police of the former East Germany before the fall of the
Berlin Wall in 1989. Hazar will admit only that he has lived in
Poland...
....Hazar was persuaded to leave Germany and go to Athens by an inner
elite within the PKK, known as the "home office" (Ülke Bürosu in
Turkish).
....Soon after his arrival in Athens last February he was taken to a
farm near Triada, north of the city. This was a training camp run by a
Greek called Dimitri and his partner Martha. Hazar believes Dimitri to
be the leader of 17 November and that the couple also has good
connections with the Greek secret service.
....Greek authorities were training and equipping Kurdish guerrillas for
missions in Turkiye.
....A small flat was founded for him near the Hotel Pefkakia in the
village of Drosia, about 12 miles north of Athens....
....unprimed bombs are given to three separate couriers to see which one
was caught, or if any in the PKK group in Greece had betrayed them.
....I didn't mind at all about hitting the Turkish army because that was
a legitimate military target.'
....was planned for Antalya, close to where former Turkish Prime
Minister Tansu Ciller's family owns a holiday resort. Another bomb was
planned for the beaches of Marmaris, popular with British tourists.
....half a litre of sarin, a deadly nerve agent...
....for the Ankara mausoleum of Kemal Atatürk,...
....28 October

STATEMENT BY JAMES B. FOLEY, US STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN IN RESPONSE
TO A QUESTION AT THE REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING ON
1 October 1997
QUESTION: Yesterday, we asked the question about the British Observer
newspaper news items about Greece and PKK cooperation. Do you have
anything about this subject today?
ANSWER: Yes. As the April 1997 edition of our publication, "Patterns of
Global Terrorism" noted, the Greek government continues to tolerate the
official presence in Athens of offices of two Turkish terrorist groups;
the PKK's formerly known as Dev-Sol. The latter group is responsible
for the murder of two U.S. government contractors in Turkiye. The Greek
government is clearly aware of our concerns. We're also aware of a
recent allegation, I think you or one of your colleagues noted
yesterday, by a self-described former PKK member or operative of
involvement by Greek government personnel in operational PKK terrorist
activity. I have no information report. We're assessing it as we take
all such reports seriously.
TIME
30 March 1998
EUROPE A HELLENIC HAVEN

Its not every day one sees recruits inducted into a terrorist
organisation. But at the Kurdish Cultural Centre in downtown Athens it
happens three or four times a month. About that often, a self-described
"political branch" of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (P.K.K.) sets up a
few dozen plastic chairs in a room on the centre's dingy first floor,
hangs the red and yellow P.K.K flag on the wall and carts in a Yamaha
electric organ to pound out Ey Ragip, a P.K.K. anthem. Grizzled P.K.K.
loyalists watch as recruits proclaim their allegiance to the armed
movement that has earned a place on the US State Department's list of
terrorist organisations. "Five to 10 Kurds leave here every week to
return (to Kurdistan) and fight," says Rozerin Laser, Balkans general
director of the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (E.R.N.K.), the
P.K.K political group that seeks a Kurdish homeland in parts of
Turkiye, Syria, Iran and Iraq.
The P.K.K. recruitment of Kurds in Greece is an overlooked link in the
vicious cycle of refugees and revolution across Europe's southeastern
frontier. In January, an influx of thousands of Kurds into Italy and
Greece reminded the rest of the EU how permeable its borders really
are. But not all Kurdish asylum seekers end up in Western Europe. Some
join the P.K.K. and return to would-be Kurdistan to fight, fuelling
more Turkish repression and a new flood of refugees and a new flood of
refugees and potential PKK. recruits. With the Greek government turning
a blind eye, P.K.K. representatives claim the recruiters are free to
start the process over again. The latest refugee crisis says one senior
Western diplomat in Athens, who specialises in terrorist issues,
"unveiled Turkiye's appalling human rights record and revealed the
porous frontiers of Greece and Italy." But, he says, "It also took the
wrappings off Greece's tolerance of rebel Kurds."

The E.R.N.K's induction ceremonies are just the tail end of the process
for turning refugees into revolutionaries. The real indoctrination and
recruitment goes on at places like Lavrion, 45 km southeast of Athens,
one of about five main refugee camps for the 100 or so Kurdish asylum
seekers arriving each month. Although hardly lavish, the camp boasts an
18-inch colour TV with a satellite dish to receive daily broadcasts
from MED TV, the Kurdish news station. Kurdish camp leaders use cell
phones for calls to their "brothers in battle," as they describe their
cohorts on the outside. The crumbling walls are hung with pictures of
P.K.K. strongman Abdullah Ocalan and martyrs to the Kurdish cause.

"This is the greatest help that Greece is providing us," says Ferzeyn
Iskender, a self-proclaimed P.K.K. loyalist at Lavrion. "It is here
away from their homeland that the Kurds nurture their ethnic identity,
learn who they are, what they stand for, how they've been abused by the
Turkish authorities." He points to a group of children playing in the
compound's concrete courtyard. . "Listen," he says, "They're singing Ey
Ragip." P.K.K. tutors arrive twice a week, according to camp leaders,
to teach the history of Kurdistan, its language, customs and
traditions, subjects that would be illegal in Turkiye. But P.K.K.
activists at the camp quickly turn such topics into propaganda. The
E.R.N.K.'s Laser admits that her success in recruitment "is the result
of a process of ideological training."

Turkiye says Greece is aiding and abetting the P.K.K, citing the
confessions of P.K.K. members as proof. "We are just stating what
P.K.K. terrorists captured in Turkiye are saying," says Sermet
Atacanli, a spokesman for Turkiye's Foreign Ministry. "They have been
trained in Greece, both ideologically and militarily." "Lies, lies,
lies!" responds Greece's fiery Foreign Minister, Theodore Pangalos, to
accusations of Greek involvement. Western diplomats monitoring the
P.K.K. say there's no hard evidence substantiating such accusations,
but that "there is a grey area in the field of financial support."

Much sympathy and support comes from the Greek population itself, which
sees parallels between the Kurdish nationalist movement and their own
1830 liberation from the Ottoman Empire. "The same thing is happening
now with the Kurds," says English teacher Kaiti Piperopulou as she
delivers school supplies to Lavrion. "We must help them." The P.K.K.
builds on that backing, circulating fundraising leaflets festooned with
symbols of Greek, Kurdish and Greek Cypriot unity and bearing slogans
like, "The solution to the disputes in the Aegean and Cyprus goes
through Kurdistan." The leaflets always include the bank account
numbers for the E.R.N.K. "We are not hiding what we are doing," says
Lavrion's Iskender.

In the U.S., such open P.K.K. activities would be a breach of the
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996 and would bring prison sentences of up to 10
years for those perpetrating them. But in Greece, the P.K.K.'s
terrorist fire spreads virtually unchecked. Across the border, Turkiye
fans the flames with its draconian treatment of the Kurdish minority,
and year by year more Kurds are drawn into the conflagration.
- Reported by Anthee Carassava/Athens

PRESS STATEMENT OF KENYAN GOVERNMENT ON THE ENTRY INTO THE COUNTRY BY
ABDULLAH OCALAN
The Government received information that Mr. Abdullah Ocalan, leader of
the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Turkiye, arrived in the country on
2nd February, 1999 at 1 1.33 p.m., aboard a private jet. The request
for diplomatic clearance for the said aircraft was sought by the
Embassy of Greece. The aircraft landed without clearance, since the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs had wanted to establish the status of the
persons in the aircraft prior to its arrival.
The Government also established that the names of the persons used in
the Greek Embassy's Note Verbale seeking clearance were fictitious. The
Greek Ambassador was at pains to explain why the names appearing in the
Note Verbale were different from the persons at the Embassy.

After intervention with the Greek Ambassador, it was confirmed that Mr.
Ocalan was in the Ambassador's residence. The Government immediately
requested for his expatriation from the Country to which the Greek
Ambassador agreed after consultations with his Minister in Athens. The
Embassy undertook the responsibility to pay for their Expatriation
expenses. Consequently, Mr. Ocalan departed the country yesterday, the
15th of February 1999, at about 7:30 p.m. local time, for a destination
known to the Greek authorities.

The Government has established that the Mr. Ocalan arrived in the
Country from Milan, Italy. According to the Greek Ambassador Nationals
from the following Countries accompanied Mr. Ocalan: Sweden, Germany,
the United Kingdom, Belgium and Greece. The entry of Mr. Ocalan into
the country appears to have been well known to the Greek Government. We
are puzzled as to why Kenya was chosen as a destination for Ocalan. It
is possible that the Greek authorities may have taken advantage of the
strong friendly relations existing between our two countries, which
raises serious questions about their sincerity and trustworthiness.

The Greek Government must be aware that Kenya was recently a target by
terrorists who bombed the United States Embassy on August 7th, 1998,
causing heavy loss of life and extensive damage to property in Nairobi.
The presence of Mr. Ocalan in the country, therefore, raises serious
security concerns. We would not have expected a friendly country like
Greece to subject Kenya to such an awkward situation giving rise to
suspicion and possible attack.

The Government is, therefore, taking up the matter with the Government
of Greece with a view to ascertaining the full circumstances and
reasons leading to the illegal entry of Mr. Ocalan to Kenya. The Greek
Ambassador H.E. Mr. George Costorlas was at hand to meet the group at
the J.K.I.A. He briefly boarded the aircraft and left with passengers
without following any of the formalities. No immigration arrival cards
were filled as the passengers were simply walked through. Initially
when the Government got wind of Mr. Ocalan presence in the Ambassador's
residence the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Ambassador to
explain, but he vehemently denied. However, when he was confronted
yesterday concrete evidence, he owned up, setting into motion the
process of his departure as outlined above.

In view of the above, it is no longer possible to trust the Ambassador
as serious doubts about his credibility have been created. Accordingly,
the Government had demanded his recall with immediate effect.

The Government of Kenya wishes to emphasise that the Government had no
role whatsoever to play in Mr. Ocalan presence in Kenya.
16th February, 1999 NAIROBI

ATHENS NEWS
17 FEBRUARY 1999
GOVERNMENT PLACES THE BLAME ON KURDISH LEADER FOR HIS OWN CAPTURE

Pangalos gives official version of events, condemns embassy sieges with
harsh words Greece's Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos lashed out at
yesterday's occupations of Greek embassies and consulates throughout
Europe by Kurdish activists as he finally confirmed that Greece had
provided "temporary" refuge for Abdullah Ocalan, the rebel leader of
the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Speaking at a hastily convened emergency news conference in Athens
yesterday morning, an irate Pangalos threatened to take "merciless"
action at home and abroad against Kurdish activists unless hostages
held in Greek embassies around Europe were released by noon, implying
that there could even be mass deportations of Kurds in Greece.

"We are giving them an ultimatum," Pangalos told the special news
conference. "Our behaviour will be merciless if they do not leave by 12
noon," he warned. In the wake of persistent official government denials
concerning the whereabouts of Ocalan, Pangalos admitted for the first
time that Greece had given Ocalan "temporary residence, for
humanitarian reasons" at the residence of the Greek ambassador in
Kenya.

Pangalos, admitting that Greece had sheltered Ocalan in a Greek
diplomatic building for the past 12 days, said that Ocalan himself, in
spite of Greek advice to the contrary, decided to attempt to leave
Kenya and go to Holland. The foreign minister said that contact with
Ocalan was lost during his transfer by car from the Greek ambassador's
residence to the airport. Ocalan's car was being followed by a number
of Greek embassy cars, including that of the Greek ambassador, which
"lost visual contact" with Ocalan's car.

Pangalos said that Greece had informed the Kenyan authorities and
awaited their update on exactly what happened, adding that contact had
also been made with the EU presidency, the German foreign minister and
the American government, asking them to intervene in order to find out
what exactly took place. He added that he would also be contacting the
British and Italian foreign ministers.

At the same time Pangalos said that he had sent a strict telegram to
the PKK leadership, asking it to order its members to withdraw from
occupied Greek embassies and consulates by midday. Pangalos
characterised as an "act of extreme brutality" the taking of hostages,
including women and children, at the Greek embassies in The Hague and
Vienna.

Accepting that Greece has always respected the struggle of the Kurdish
people and support for human rights, Pangalos reiterated that Greece "
never considered, or would consider, as expedient or useful the
presence of Ocalan on Greek territory for reasons concerning both the
interests of the Kurdish people and security and stability in the
region". He repeated that no application for granting political asylum
to Ocalan had been made to Greece, "and if such a request had been
submitted, under the 1991 Dublin Treaty on political asylum, such a
request would have been referred to Italy, which was the first European
country that Ocalan went to after his departure from Syria".

Replying to reporters' questions, Pangalos openly admitted for the
first time that Ocalan's plane had touched down at an airport in
western Greece in order to refuel after his failed attempts to land in
Holland before proceeding to Kenya.

Pangalos also revealed that Ocalan's presence on Greek territory in
Kenya was the exclusive knowledge of himself and the leadership at the
Greek foreign ministry. Finally, Pangalos reiterated that Greece should
not have been and should not be part of the Kurdish problem, which he
described as an internal Turkish problem that should not become part of
a Greek-Turkish dispute.

Two hours after Pangalos' impromptu press conference, the national
defence ministry's crisis management team held an emergency meeting to
" assess the situation following the attacks against the Greek
embassies abroad by protesting Kurds". According to media reports, the
crisis meeting was attended by the army, navy and airforce chiefs of
staff, national defence general staff senior officers and high-ranking
officials from the foreign ministry and Greek intelligence service
(EYP).

Later in the day, government spokesman Dimitris Reppas, who had
persistently denied government involvement in the prickly Ocalan saga,
requested clarifications from the Kenyan government concerning the
circumstances surrounding the capture of Ocalan. Reppas said that the
Greek government places exclusive responsibility for the latest
developments, including Ocalan's falling into the hands of the Turkish
authorities, with Ocalan himself, who negotiated with the Kenyan
authorities in person. Reppas also suggested the means of Ocalan's
transfer to Nairobi be such that it was open secret.

Reppas said Ocalan refused to leave Kenya for one of a number of
unspecified African countries that were willing to grant him asylum, as
had been suggested by the Greek side, instead choosing to seek asylum
in Holland, at which time the Greek authorities ceased to have any
participation in where the Kurdish leader would go.

A stern faced Reppas, who faced a barrage of reporters' questions
during his daily scheduled briefing, said that Ocalan had been in
direct contact with Kenyan government officials - in whom the Kurdish
leader had "shown trust" - with the aim of travelling to the
Netherlands. The Greek government, he added, has no information about
"the way things turned out" and bore no responsibility from the moment
of Ocalan's departure "from where has was, with the responsibility of
the Greek side" to an unknown destination. The handling of the issue by
the foreign ministry and jointly competent ministries was entirely
successful, Reppas said.

ATHENS NEWS
17 FEBRUARY 1999
OCALAN'S GREEK FRIEND, LAWYER TELLS THEIR STORY.
A different, more intriguing version to that of the government on the
Abdullah Ocalan saga also emerged yesterday. The backstage of PKK
leader's trip to Kenya, whence he ended up in the hands of the Turkish
security forces, was revealed by retired senior naval officer Andonis
Naxakis, a PKK sympathiser who played host to Ocalan when he visited
Greece at the end of last month.
Naxakis told SKAI television channel that, on Friday 29 January, he
chartered a private jet with the help of an unnamed Greek businessman
and following consultations with Kurdish representatives, transported
Ocalan from Leningrad to Athens. According to Naxakis, the Kurdish
leader was in dire danger from the Russian Mafia and had to leave
Russia urgently. The Russian secret services had apparently alerted
Greece, but Naxakis party escaped through the VIP exit of Hellinikon
Airport. The retired officer initially transported Ocalan to the house
of Voula Damianakou in Nea Makri, east of Athens, where he spent the
night, and took him to his own house on Saturday 30 January.

At this stage, Naxakis tried to bring Ocalan in touch with the Greek
foreign ministry so that he could apply for political asylum. Foreign
Minister Theodoros Pangalos allegedly agreed to visit the Kurdish
leader on that particular Saturday, but sent the head of the Greek
Information Agency (EYP) instead. EYP subsequently assumed the
responsibility of safeguarding Ocalan, and Naxakis told reporters that
he felt indirectly responsible for what happened next, since he had
arranged for the meeting.

Naxakis claims that on Monday 1 February the Greek government
guaranteed that Ocalan would be safely transported to a place of Greek
sovereignty, but the Kurdish leader discovered that they were referring
to the embassy in Nairobi just before he boarded the plane that was to
take him there on Tuesday. Naxakis' role ends at this point, but the
tale is continued by Failos Kranidiotis, one of Ocalan's lawyers, who
gave a full account of events as from Wednesday 10 February. On that
day, Kranidiotis was summoned to a secret location in Brussels for
consultations with PKK members, who told him that their leader was in
danger of being discovered and sent him to Nairobi.

Kranidiotis spent the weekend with Ocalan and was present as the
Kurdish leader conferred with Greek representatives on what to do next.
Ocalan's presence had become known in the Kenyan capital, and Athens
wanted him out of the embassy. According to the lawyer, Ocalan was
offered the options of being taken to a house in the Kenyan
countryside, or to be granted a temporary refuge by a local Greek
Orthodox Church. The Kurdish leader ruled out both plans, allegedly
stating that "Greece has brought me here under guarantee, and it should
get me out of here under guarantee".

In conversations with the head of the Greek foreign ministry's
diplomatic office, Ocalan asked for Greek Funds to buy a new passport,
a joint Greek-Kenyan guarantee of his safety, and a Greek plane-with a
government official on board - to fly him out of Nairobi. He also
reportedly made a fresh request for political asylum, which the Greek
foreign ministry apparently turned down as "disgraceful". The Kurdish
leader was also informed that four Greek security personnel were being
sent to the embassy to make sure that he left. At this point, one of
the two female fighters guarding the PKK leader pulled out a gun and
threatened to commit suicide. Kranidiotis was then sent to Athens with
another request for political asylum. Before he left, Ocalan allegedly
told him that he was caught between Turkiye and Greece, "the bandit
state on the one hand and the comedy state on the other". He was
intercepted on his way to Nairobi airport and was informed by the
Kenyan authorities that the President, Arab Moy, was fully aware of
Ocalan's presence.

All contact with the Kurdish leader was broken off on Monday 15
January, with the well-known results. PKK sources insist that their
leader was forced to leave the Nairobi embassy, despite the Greek
government's protests to the contrary, and that he was led away by
Kenyan police. Similar fears are voiced by his lawyers. Giuliano
Pisapia, Ocalan's legal representative in Italy, who visited his client
during the weekend, stated yesterday that there had been an operation
to capture the Kurdish leader as early as Sunday 14 February, but that
it had been called off due to the lawyer's presence. Eberhardt Schulz,
Ocalan's lawyer in Germany, claimed that his client had been tricked
into surrendering to the Kenyan authorities and had been dragged out of
the embassy by local forces. Meanwhile, the Italian news agency ANSA
reported on Monday that Ocalan had been handed over to the Kenyans by
the Greek embassy's staff

APPENDIX 1:
CAMPS AND CELLS OF THE TERRORIST ORGANIZATION PKK IN GREECE
LAVRION REFUGE CAMP: At the Lavrion Refugee Camp, apart from the PKK,
members of other terrorist organisations find shelter and are given
training. It has been found out that a bank account has been opened at
the Kaningos branch of the Greek National Bank for the PKK members
being sheltered at the Lavrion Camp. Samil Asmaad and Sinan Aslan, two
members of the PKK, are known to be responsible to meet such needs of
the terrorists.
LAMIA HALKIDA CAMP: This is a farmhouse 200 kilometres away from
Athens, used by the terrorist organisation PKK. The farmhouse is
surrounded by barbed wire fences. About 300-400 militants from
different terrorist groups are being sheltered at the camp. The
militants attend both political and military training in two different
phases. The military training includes all forms of bomb making and
planting explosives. The owners of the camp (farmhouse) are two Greek
citizens known as Dimitri and Marta. Two PKK terrorists trained at this
camp and apprehended by Turkish Security Forces have confessed that the
owners help the members of the PKK in the camp by all possible means;
they let the terrorists use their vehicles and they supply logistic
needs of the terrorists.

THE PKK CELL IN AHARNON/ATHENS: According to the testimonies of the PKK
terrorists apprehended in Turkiye, the PKK uses as a cell a flat on the
5th floor of the building, next to the station, at the very corner of
the road opposite the Saint Pandalemonas Church.

THE PKK CELL IN DAFNI/ATHENS: The location of this cell is described by
the terrorists as follows: "Take the Dafni bus. Get off at the Saint
Ionia stop. Walk up from the second street. Before you reach the end of
the street, the cell is on the third road across the street." In this
cell the PKK militants coming from Turkiye are trained on explosives
and attend a 15-day political training.

THE PKK CELL IN THESSALONICA: This PKK cell is depicted by the
militants as follows: "In a hilly district of the Thessalonica Bazaar,
there is a supermarket and a gas station next to the Goody's
Hamburgers. If you turn the corner from the cafe there, the second
floor of the building number 16 is the PKK cell."

APPENDIX 2
EXCERPTS FROM THE TESTIMONIES OF THE TERRORISTS TRAINED IN GREECE AND
SENT TO TURKIYE TO CONDUCT TERRORIST ACTS ON BEHALF OF THE TERRORIST
ORGANIZATION PKK
Some excerpts from the testimonies of terrorists apprehended by Turkish
Security Forces, which indicate the support provided by Greece to the
PKK militants are as follows:
1- TESTIMONY OF SEYITHAN SAMACAN (CODE-NAME AHMET-MAHMUT-SEYDO) FROM
SIVEREK/SANLIURFA APPREHENDED IN BATMAN ON 27 DECEMBER 1993:
"I went to the Samos Island from Kusadasi/Turkiye with a group of
friends by a boat. We surrendered to the Greek police who later took us
to the Lavrion camp in Athens. A PKK member code-named Deniz took me to
the PKK bureau in Athens. The PKK members were presented with Greek
passports and sent to the Bekaa Valley/Lebanon. We were always in
contact with the Kurdistan Solidarity Committee in Greece.
(Phone:003013634905)"

2- TESTIMONY OF GIYASETTIN ALTUN FROM VARTO/MUS APPREHENDED IN ISTANBUL
ON 11 MAY 1994:
"I went to Athens from Germany by plane with a group of friends. We
were taken to a PKK cell in Athens and then to somewhere 200 kilometres
away from Athens for training. A terrorist code-named Faik was
responsible for training in the camp where there were about 20
militants. In the camp we were trained on explosives to conduct
terrorist attacks against military, economic and tourism targets."

3- TESTIMONY OF IMAM GÜR (CODE-NAME AKIF) FROM BEYDOGMUS/ELAZIG,
ARRESTED ON 5 JUNE 1994:
"I went from Germany to Athens where I was provided with a false
passport. I was first taken to a cell and then to a camp with the
others I had met in the cell. In the camp we were trained on explosives
(bombs) and instructed to go to Turkiye, in order to attack public
buildings and tourism facilities. We were provided with the phone
numbers of the militants in Germany to get in touch if necessary."

4- TESTIMONY OF VEYSEL BOZALI (CODE-NAME SAHIN-SEHMUZ) FROM BINGÖL,
APPREHENDED IN ISTANBUL ON 12 MAY 1994:
"I went to Athens from Germany where I was provided with a false
passport. In Athens, a PKK member code-named Cemil met me and took me
to the Kurdish Committee. Then, a Greek lady took me and 10 other
fellows to a hilly area 200 kilometres away from Athens. We stayed at a
house in a forest. For 2 months we were trained on explosives. A PKK
member code-named Faik was responsible for the training. We were
instructed to attack military, economic and tourism targets in Turkiye"

5- TESTIMONY OF AHMET AKKURT (CODE-NAME CIHAN- ALI-HASAN) FROM
IDIL/SIRNAK ARRESTED IN ISTANBUL ON 22 JUNE 1994:
"I went to Athens from Germany with a false passport and was taken to
the camp. The camp was about 3 km away from the Aegean cost and was
surrounded by hills. We were given training on explosives for a month.
A PKK militant code-named Faik who was responsible for training told us
that we would be sent to Turkiye to hit economic and tourism targets."

6- TESTIMONY OF ATILLA TEKEL FROM ELAZIG WHO SURRENDERED TO THE TURKISH
SECURITY FORCES DURING THE OPERATION HELD IN NORTHERN IRAQ ON 21 MARCH
1995:
"I went to Athens from Germany with a group of friends. A 35-year old
man approached me at the passport checkpoint at the airport and asked
us whether we were Turkish or Kurdish. We said that we were Kurds. Then
we were taken to an office without any passport control and were given
some food. The Greek agent dealing with us phoned a PKK militant
code-named Rojhat. Rojhat came and took us to Heyva Sor ('Kurdish Red
Crescent', one of Pak's front establishments) which is 15 kilometres
from Athens. Rojhat was a Syrian about 30 years old and spoke Greek.
Later on he took us to a PKK camp, 154 kilometres away from Athens, on
the way to Macedonia. The camp was about 6,000 square meters large and
called Ibrahim Incedursun camp. In February 1995 there were about 40
terrorists in the camp. For 3 months we received political and military
training to conduct terrorist attacks in Turkish cities. The camp was
being run totally under the umbrella of Greece. Greek parliamentarians
and the public were providing material support to the PKK. The
publications of the PKK are sold mostly from Greece to Europe. Lavrion
Camp is 1.5 hours away from Athens. It is close to the seaside. Its
full capacity is 400 militants. Apart from the PKK, militants of
extreme leftist terrorist organisations such as TKP/ML, DEV SOL, TDKP,
TKIP, TKEP, TKP/KIVILCIM were trained in the camp."

7- TESTIMONY OF CANSUR KIRT (CODE-NAME KAWA REMZI) FROM
LICE/DIYARBAKIR, APPREHENDED IN IZMIR:
"I crossed the River Meriç to Greece with my friend code-named Bozan.
We were intending to go to Germany. A villager from whom we asked for
some food took us to a Greek police station. We told the Greek police
that we were Kurds and PKK members. We were sent to Athens and
transferred to the Lavrion Camp. In the camp there were about 30 other
militants. The police collected our ID's and questioned all of us one
by one. The representatives of each terrorist organisation in the camp
asked us to which organisation we belonged. For three months we took
political training in the camp. One day we were taken to a forest, 5-6
hours away from the camp where the PKK militant code-named Faik trained
us on the use of explosives and firearms. Faik instructed us to go back
to Athens and then to Turkiye to conduct terrorist acts."

8- TESTIMONY OF MEHMET KAVAK (CODE-NAME ÇIYA) FROM
CEYLANPINAR/SANLIURFA APPREHENDED IN IZMIR ON 5 MAY 1995:
"I went from Cologne to Athens on 31 December 1994. The police officer
at the passport check told me that I could not enter Greece since I did
not have a visa. Upon the instructions I had received from the PKK, I
told that I was a Kurd and was to be met by the members of the Kurdish
Committee. Then the police changed his attitude and helped me. I spent
the night at the airport. Then, a PKK member came and took me."

9- TESTIMONY OF METIN SAGLAM FROM ERZURUM APPREHENDED IN ISTANBUL ON 8
AUGUST 1995:
"I swam across the River Meriç to Greece in 1994. I was arrested by
the Greek police. I told the police that I was a PKK member and I
sought political asylum. I was questioned by the Greek intelligence and
police before being taken to the Lavrion camp. In the camp there were
members of the PKK and extreme leftist Turkish terrorist groups. I
stayed in the camp for 15 days. Then I went to the PKK cell in Athens.
After that I was taken to a farmhouse which belonged to a Greek couple.
The camp representatives, code-named Cemal and Faik, gave political and
military training to us. Faik taught us to make and plant different
kinds of bombs."

10- TESTIMONY OF MEHMET ÇEKIÇ (CODE-NAME HÜSEYIN YILMAZ) FROM
ADIYAMAN:
"I went from Frankfurt to Athens with a false Dutch passport. I gave
the numbers of the Heyva Sor (Kurdish Red Crescent) to the customs
officer in Athens and entered Greece. A PKK courier came to pick me up.
This courier talked to a Greek parliamentarian with white hair called
Dimitris. We went to the Heyva Sor building in Athens. Soon I was sent
to a camp. While I was in the camp I heard that another PKK affiliated
association called 'Kurdistan Centre' was opened."

11- TESTIMONY OF FADIK ISIK (CODE-NAME SAHIN-RAMAN) FROM KAHRAMANMARAS,
APPREHENDED IN ANTALYA:
"I was sent to Bucharest/Romania in April 1994. Under the auspices of
the ERNK Bucharest representative Ömer Agaoglu, I was sent to
Thessaloniki in January 1995 for training on explosives. Then I was
sent to Athens. From Athens a PKK member took me to a camp about 20 km.
away where the PKK members were receiving military and political
training. In February 1995, a man who was said to be a Greek deputy
came to the camp and visited the PKK representatives in the camp. Greek
media members, MED TV reporters, former MPs Remzi Kartal and Zübeyir
Aydar of HEP and Necdet Buldan, (a fugitive wanted by Turkiye) visited
the camp."

12- TESTIMONY OF EMINE DIDEM MARKOÇ (CODE-NAME NELA FILIZ AYTEN) FROM
ARDAHAN, APPREHENDED IN ADANA ON 24 JUNE 1996:
"We came from Frankfurt to Athens. Greek police arrested me with four
of my friends. A PKK member code-named Rojhat came and told the police
that we are PKK militants. Then the police released us although they
had realised that we had false Dutch passports. One evening we were
taken to the PKK camp in Halkida/ Lamia. We had political training for
45 days. After the political training we had military training. Then I
was sent to the PKK cell in Aharnon/Athens. Meanwhile I had an
operation at the Evangelismos State Hospital, due to a throat illness.
The bill for the operation was issued on behalf of Menal-Dilxwvaz who
was from the ERNK Balkans Representation. Thanks to the ERNK document,
the hospital bill was paid by the Greek Ministry of Health. Soon I had
a second operation which was also paid by the Greek Ministry of
Health."

13- INFORMATION DERIVED FROM THE TESTIMONY OF SEREF KILIÇ (CODE-NAME
YALÇIN) WHO WAS CAUGHT IN THE GARDEN OF THE TURKISH CONSULATE GENERAL
IN URIMIYAH/IRAN AND BROUGHT BACK TO ANKARA FOR INTERROGATION ON 23
DECEMBER 1997
Seref Kiliç has established contact with PKK members in the Çanakkale
prison while he was a student in Çanakkale 18 March University and
joined the organisation. He went to Romania via Bulgaria on 10 March
1997 with Hanim Demir and Orhan Yüce who were friends from the
university and following their stay in Romania for some time, they came
back to Bulgaria. They passed to Athens from Bulgaria by motorway on
27th-28th March with Hamza (code-name) (ERNK Bulgarian Responsible),
Orhan Yüce and Hanim Demir. Hamza took them (S. Kiliç H.Demir and
O.Yüce) to a PKK house and introduced them to the militants; Rojhat,
Hatip, and Pino (code-name). Mahir (code-name), who was the General
Coordinator of the Balkan Province at that time, Sait Ali (code-name)
and Ilgaz (code-name), who were Revolutionist People Party (DHP)
militants, came to the house in question and Mahir, after taking them
to a separate room, told them that they had to act in accordance with
the organisation's demands, collected their passports and ID cards, and
then requested Sait Ali to take them to the building where they would
receive training. At 24:00 on the same day's night (27-28 March 1997)
S. Ali took them with a white "Tempra" automobile to a white,
three-storey building which was on a side street in the centre of
Athens. A total of 45 people, made up of 3 teams consisting of 15
persons each, inhabited the building used by the organisation for
political training and one or two members stood guard around the clock
for security. 40 of the total of 45 persons receiving training were
university students. In the beginning of June 1997, in order to receive
combined military and political training, they were taken by a minibus
to a campsite in the countryside 3 hours from Athens which was still
under construction. 45 persons in the form of 3 teams, settled in the
encampment in the mountainous area, and every morning they continued
with the political courses that they had been receiving earlier, and in
the afternoons they were being given military courses on ambush,
penetration and raids by militants named Cemal and Çektar
(code-names). These courses lasted from the beginning of June until the
beginning of September 1997. As the militants dwelled in the
encampment, two Greek citizens Memo (code-name) and Dilan (code-name)
(woman) carried food to a place 1 km. away from the camp, each time
with different vehicles. Seref Kiliç decided to escape from the camp
with Rabia Coskun, but they were noticed and captured while trying to
communicate through passwords since it was forbidden to talk with each
other. After this incident, Rabia Coskun was sent to Athens, and Seref
Kiliç was "put into practice" (which meant, "cell imprisonment" in the
PKK jargon). He was "kept in practice" for 40 days, and within this
period some of his friends with whom he had arrived in the camp were
periodically transferred to the "front". In the beginning of September
1997, as this camp place has been exposed, encampment was transferred
to another mountainous place 50 km away, and political and military
training continued. In this period, Çektar and Cemal were replaced by
two other militants code-named Deniz and Ilgaz (woman). From time to
time, they were also instructed by a militant named Necmi. The number
of militants increased up to 85 with new arrivals. Most of these
militants were university students. Students of Eskisehir Anatolian
University also existed within the group. In the beginning of November
1997 Deniz and Ilgaz announced that the training was completed and that
they would be transferred to northern Iraq. They took all of the 60-65
militants then in the camp to Athens. In Athens, after driving for
about 1 km. from the club named "Riba's" that is located in the city
centre, they arrived at a building complex. There war a meter high
stone wall in front of the complex, which consisted of one three-storey
and six single-story buildings. The other sides were surrounded by
barbed wire. The three-storey building was used by a retired Greek
general who used to come to this place from time to time, stay for a
few hours and communicate with the high ranking militants of the terror
organisation in Greece. According to the statements of Seref Kiliç,
the house he was taken to on March 27-28, 1997 for training was located
at Praksiteuls Road. No: 28 in Athens. The daily schedule applied
during political training, the harsh attitude towards people that were
being trained (seizure of their ID Cards, not being allowed to speak
with each other or to leave the camp) confirm the statements given by
more recently arrested members of the terror organisation. It
transpires that the campsite where they were taken for military
training, 3 hours to Athens by minibus, is the mobile camp at a
mountainous area to the north of the Phasna town at Evia island. The
campsite where they were taken in early November 1997 is the "Haki
Karaer" camp which is also described in the statement of Dr. Serdar
(code-name) Hasan Belli who surrendered to the Turkish Consulate in
Piraeus on 8 December 1997 and who was interrogated at the Edirne
Police Headquarters after he was taken to Turkiye with a temporary
travel document.

14. TESTIMONY OF ULAS AKBAL (CODE-NAME DURAN-ARTES-MAHIR) FROM
DIYARBAKIR: " - In the Association of "Komal Mezopotamya" functioning
in Lavrion, the periodical "Fonito Kurdistan" in Greek was sold in
order to collect money to the organisation. A group of 50 persons were
given political training in a house in Athens. In the Lavrion Refugee
Camp, training on explosives was given by Serdar (code-name). Militants
were trained for bomb attacks in the big cities in Turkiye.

15. TESTIMONY OF 1970 BORN FETHI DEMIR (CODE-NAME MAHIR) WHO
SURRENDERED IN BINGÖL/GENÇ ON MARCH 6, 1998: "The names of the PKK
militants, who would come to Greece from Turkiye or from other European
countries, were given to the Greek Ministry of Public Order. The
Ministry transmitted their names to the relevant authorities at the
border or in the airports and they facilitated their passage to Greece.
PKK militants met me at the Athens Airport and took me to a house
belonging to the PKK. There I was told that there were other houses
like this on Tiriyö Septen Biriyö Street 154, Vasilik Sophias Street
154, Omonia Square, Kipseli district). We went to a training camp
approximately two hours away by car from Athens. At the Ministry of
Public Order there is a separate section dealing only with matters
concerning the PKK. Militants who crossed the Turkish border to Greece
were taken by the Greek police to the Lavrion Camp and from there they
were picked up by a PKK militant and accommodated in different PKK
houses in Greece. Political training was given at the Greek Island
Evia. Local police and intelligence service supported us. Logistics of
this camp were supplied by two Greek nationals called Dimitri and
Martha. We rented a building in the centre of Athens with the help of
Thedor Susanoglu who had worked for the Greek Consulate General in
Izmir in the 1980s. Militants that came to Greece were provided with
"Refugee Passport". Using these passports they could travel to all
Schengen countries and if they had to travel to another country,
necessary visas were provided by the help of the Greek Consulate
General in the country concerned. For those militants operating in
Greece, Greek language courses were given in Athens Pandion University.
The Greek Intelligence wanted us to select 7 persons. They would give
them special intelligence training. PKK terrorist organisation was in
close contact with three Ministers in the Greek government. Foreign
Minister Pangalos, Education Minister Arsenis and Defence Minister
Choxarcopoulos gave us continuous and wide support. Funds were provided
to the PKK from the budget of the Greek Parliament. Among other high
ranking officials who directly supported the PKK were the Former
Minister of Interior Baduvas (we always contacted him when we had
problems with the Greek police or border units), retired General
Naksasis (he was responsible for our connection with the Greek
Intelligence Service), Thedor Susanoglu mentioned before, who could
speak excellent Turkish and was responsible for all kinds o
correspondence between PKK leadership and Greek officials and
translation of letters etc. The PKK terrorist organisation operated in
Greece during 1996-1997 through the following organisations, ERNK
Office (Andresis Vasilisis Sophias Street 54, Phone N:724 7022), Heyva
Sor Kurdistan (Kaningos Street, Athens), Kurdish Culture Association,
Greek Representation of Derri Agency, Kurdish Solidarity Committee in
Thessalonica.

Ali Asker

2/20/2005 5:14:00 AM

Parlez le singe ! Nous ne pouvons pas vous entendre ! ! !

Ali Asker

2/20/2005 5:16:00 AM

Le perroquet est un mot bien meilleur pour vous !

Libert Taire

2/20/2005 11:17:00 AM

"Ali Asker" <pasa_asker@lycos.com> wrote in
news:1108876575.310399.123910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

> Le perroquet est un mot bien meilleur pour vous !
>
>

PLONK

rOyAlShAdOwS

2/20/2005 11:24:00 AM

Libert Taire wrote:
> "Ali Asker" <pasa_asker@lycos.com> wrote in
> news:1108876575.310399.123910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>
>
>>Le perroquet est un mot bien meilleur pour vous !
>>
>>
>
>
> PLONK

Warum ?

Libert Taire

2/20/2005 11:35:00 AM

rOyAlShAdOwS <rOyAlShAdOwS@sknet.be> wrote in
news:42187397$0$2263$ba620e4c@news.skynet.be:

> Libert Taire wrote:
>> "Ali Asker" <pasa_asker@lycos.com> wrote in
>> news:1108876575.310399.123910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:
>>
>>
>>>Le perroquet est un mot bien meilleur pour vous !
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> PLONK

> Warum ?
>

trop de x-posts

Mehmet Alparslan Saygin

2/20/2005 4:25:00 PM

rOyAlShAdOwS :

| Warum ?

Darum.

--
Mehmet.
fu2 scb

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