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Europe

Cicek: "We Can Say That No Genocide Took Place"

2005-04-26

ANKARA - Turkish Minister of Justice and Government Spokesman Cemil Cicek has indicated that, after many years of leaving the issue of so-called genocide to historians, it is now high time for Turkey to start disproving all allegations in various countries.

"Nope, didn't happen here, nope, nope"

Cicek remarked that for centuries the Armenians lived in an empire (Ottoman) happily and in a rich atmosphere. ''Armenians began uprising against the Ottoman government with the incitement, encouragement and promises of some countries under the conditions of the First World War and massacred especially Muslim Turks, leading to mutual incidents.''

"Them Euros stirred things up, provoking our happy, smiling Armenians to kill us innocent Muslims! So, we went mutual on them! But it wasn't genocide.."

''April 24 is the end of incidents perpetrated by Armenians and what happened did happen within the context of conditions of war. This aspect is disregarded and Turkey is unjustly blamed for something that it never did.''

"It was war, I tell you, war! ...just not genocide, ok."

Underlining that Turkey suffered from Armenian terrorism especially after 1965, Cicek expressed sadness for Turkish diplomats killed by Armenian terrorists. Cicek noted that Armenians influenced the parliaments of the countries in which they are powerful and succeeded in obtaining parliament decisions in their favor in 15 countries.

"Them dirty Armenians control the world, I tell you! They's still plotting again us, deep dark evil plots"

Noting that Turkey has always considered the incidents of 1915 as an historical topic and that should be made clear by historians, Cicek said, ''if we evaluate the topic from a political perspective, this would take us to a different point. Apparently, parliaments of certain countries can make decisions based on the incidents of the past and can cause a chaotic atmosphere. As Turks, we wished that, instead of turning incidents of the past into a topic of hatred and anger, they should be brought to daylight by the historians with an approach looking at the future. Such a Turkish approach has been undeniably disregarded by the parliaments of certain nations due to domestic political gains and other reasons. That is why, Turkey has given up thinking 'let's look at the future, not the past. Let's not cause younger generations raise with hatred and anger by digging into pains of the past'. We must have a new approach to the subject.''
''Based on our archives and confidence in our history and culture, we can say that no genocide took place. But altogether, we have to disprove the lies of those who claim that a genocide has taken place. We have to do it with the help of all of the government institutions and NGOs across the globe. Turkey must follow a new policy, quite different than its past approach which indicated that the issue of the so-called Armenian genocide is a matter of historians. The old policy that so-called Armenian genocide is a historical matter and not political does not meet Turkey's requirements. We have to pursue a much different policy globally as of this moment,'' indicated Cicek.

"Nothing to see here, move along"

Cicek mentioned that Turkey has opened all of its archives. ''Those who want to closely study the archives are welcome in Turkey. We can form joint commissions comprised of historical experts. We expect the Armenians to also open all of their archives. Turkey is confident about the results of such commissions.''

"The witnesses are all dead.."

Cicek stressed that the issue of so-called Armenian genocide has been thoroughly evaluated in the meeting of the Council of Ministers today (Monday). ''We are looking at the issue of so-called Armenian genocide from legal, political and historical perspectives,'' commented Cicek. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs will coordinate all of our activities in disproving Armenian allegations, told Cicek. According to Cicek, many Turkish organizations, individuals, non-governmental organizations work on disproving Armenian allegations. We may establish a coordination center to make possible the best battle against baseless Armenian allegations, said Cicek.

Posted by:Steve

#21 We can all be thankful we're discussing this in the relative privacy of an online forum.
Not so many years ago, at the public college I attended, a certain history professor dared state in lecture that the Armenians were not entirely blameless for the severity of the conflict with the Turks.
His house was firebombed that night.

And no, I'm not an Armenian basketball player.

Current feeling for the Turks notwithstanding, Anonymoose does have a very valid point. Calling what happened to the Armenians "genocide" is a use of political nomenclature, especially when not equally applied to similar excesses by the Czars, the Bolsheviks, the Aryan-Indians, and so forth.

Posted by: Asedwich 2005-04-26 9:29:12 PM

#20 I understand your point Anonymoose but, frankly, screw the Turks. My sympathy meter is at zero for them.

Bill, would you like to explain further? Or is anything larger than a quip too much work?

Posted by: Secret Master 2005-04-26 3:43:02 PM

#19 It differs from the Holocaust because the hapless Turks were not nearly as determined and organized as the Nazis were about mass murder. The intent was pretty much the same though - mass murder.

Posted by: Tkat 2005-04-26 2:54:18 PM

#18 It differs from the Holocaust because it wasn't wholesale extermination.

And yet Adolph thought it an apt enough example to cite it himself.

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-04-26 2:47:18 PM

#17 It differs from the Holocaust because it wasn't wholesale extermination.

And yet Adolph thought it an apt enough example to cite it himself.

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-04-26 2:47:18 PM

#16 You can say it, asshole, but that don't make it so. :-(

Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2005-04-26 2:22:35 PM

#15 Like the billionaire mouse said: It's barbaric, but hey - it's home.

Posted by: BH 2005-04-26 2:16:27 PM

#14 Guess the Kurds were too much to handle so they picked on the Armenians first. Now the spotlight is on and they can't deal with the Kurds the same way.

Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-04-26 2:09:53 PM

#13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide
Mitch H: "It was an organized attempt to exterminate the Armenians as a minority." As a comparitive note, look to the internal exile of the Yaqui indians in Mexico. The Yaquis had tried, almost successfully, to overthrow the government. When this failed, their punishment again was in a way similar to the "industrial" homicide that was later done by the Turks and the Nazis. Many of their men were killed, and the women and children loaded on boxcars to be shipped away to work as slave laborers in the Yucatan. And yet this, too, shouldn't really be called "genocide". This was how revolts were traditionally punished. It differs from the Holocaust because it wasn't wholesale extermination. Despite vast numbers being killed, vast number who could have been killed weren't. But enemies of the state, who were conspiring with its enemies, were brutally transported and kept in concentration camps. Most certainly it was ethnic cleansing, but as was shown in the trial in Istanbul in 1919, it was not a complete, sponsored and comprehensive campaign. Its closest approximation might be the ethnic cleansing of Yugoslavia; with no intention for clarity in their violence, in fact, efforts to obscure to themselves what they were doing, and who was doing it. Compare that to the straightforwardness of the Wannsee Conference, with its clarity and purpose. Their intent to kill each and every one of the hated minority.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-26 2:00:52 PM

#12 It's a good thing that we Americans don't have any blood on our hands, right Chief?

Posted by: Bill 2005-04-26 12:13:55 PM

#11 Hmmmm, Protocols of the Elders of Armenia anyone?

Posted by: Xbalanke 2005-04-26 12:04:21 PM

#10 Anonymoose, the Armenian slaughters weren't your garden-variety Turkish punitive butchery. It was an organized attempt to exterminate the Armenians as a minority. The men were systemically murdered, and the women and children force-marched out of the regions being emptied in a manner which made the Bataan Death March look like a school outing. We're not talking "butcher and bolt".

Posted by: Mitch H. 2005-04-26 11:44:51 AM

#9 phil_b: As a matter of policy, the Brits were usually pretty flexible, resulting in all sorts of conflict resolutions. For example, in Afghanistan, they understood that it would be next to impossible to conquer the entire country, so they ruled Kabul, then established the Kyber Pass as "The Kings Highway", pretty much ignoring the rest of the country. This was in combination with substantial bribes and other inducements. If any Afghan committed murder on the Kyber, his entire village was forfeit. One step off the Kyber though, and it was okay. A very different policy was used for the eradication of the Thughee, which was widely applauded by everyone else in India. It amounted to a "religious genocide", the extermination of an entire religion. The various "Mahdi" revolts were also very unrestricted in the amount of carnage involved, but could only be called "genocide" because the brave Moslems, like today, were more than willing to use their women and children as human shields. The British were far from generous, likewise, because the "insurgents" would also slaughter British women and children if given half a chance. So, all told, what the Turks did, while at the high end of savagery, was more or less a common and accepted practice in Asia. The Russians did far worse even later than the Turks, again to "vassal" peoples, and with far less provocation.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-26 11:40:09 AM

#8 Yeah, you can say anything you like, but as the man said, "It Ain't Necessarily So"...

Posted by: mojo 2005-04-26 11:34:49 AM

#7 where's our little Turkish fuckwit Murat? Hasn't been too happy since the Iraqi elections, huh?

Posted by: Frank G 2005-04-26 11:28:40 AM

#6 Hmmmmmmmmmmm? So whaddya ya think happened to all them there Armenian folks, Cemil? Alien abduction?

Posted by: tu3031 2005-04-26 11:24:17 AM

#5 A novel approach to historical revision and rehabilitation by the Turks! If they wait a little longer the remains of the dead might be erased for good and the matter, from the Turkish perspective, closed. They should hire Noam Chomsky as a consultant to help out with the semantics/linguistics of building a new better lie.

Posted by: Tkat 2005-04-26 11:20:30 AM

#4 the British Empire did much the same thing as the Ottomans, except in India and Afghanistan. That is, if some group was involved in revolt, sending in a punitive expedition and slaughtering a whole bunch of them, whether they were "combatants", Do you have any examples because as I far as I know it never happened, i.e. large scale slaughter of civilians (although some brits working for foreign governments did).

Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-26 11:19:57 AM

#3 The Turks are lying (again).

Posted by: SR-71 2005-04-26 11:02:06 AM

#2 First of all, on the Turks behalf, I would suggest that the Armenians were actively revolting and trying to draw the Czar into a fight with Turkey. However, this leads to the second point, that Turkey used as a common *practice* of administration, what today is incorrectly called "genocide". Whenever any of its vassal peoples would 'cut up rough', the Turks would send in a punitive expedition and slaughter a large number of them. This technique was used to effect for several centuries against many peoples, especially Arabs. The Turks did no wish to wipe them out as a people, just to 'cull the heard', to let them know who was in charge. Now, the Armenians had been engaged in the worst possible thing you could do in a country, that is, working with a foreign power to carve off a piece of it. The rest of America would be terribly pissed off, say, if the Mexicans in California decided to invite the Mexican army to invade and take over Ixtlan. But were we to then take every illegal alien and boot them back to Mexico, it would hardly be proper to call it "ethnic cleansing". But they would call it that, anyway. As a final note, the British Empire did much the same thing as the Ottomans, except in India and Afghanistan. That is, if some group was involved in revolt, sending in a punitive expedition and slaughtering a whole bunch of them, whether they were "combatants", or not. Nothing really special or unique about it, and it wasn't really even noteworthy until after World War I, and the Geneva Conventions decided that it wasn't nice.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-04-26 10:43:42 AM

#1 We may establish a coordination center to make possible the best battle against baseless Armenian allegations, said Cicek.

No doubt it will be called the "Genocide Followup and Completion Center".

Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-04-26 10:43:16 AM

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