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The Armenian Genocide (also known as the Armenian Holocaust or the Armenian Massacre) is a term which refers to the forced mass evacuation and related deaths of hundreds of thousands or over a million Armenians, during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire. Several facts in connection with the event are a matter of ongoing dispute between parts of the international community and Turkey. Although it is generally agreed that events said to comprise what is termed the Armenian Genocide did occur, the Turkish government rejects that it was genocide, on the alleged basis that the deaths among the Armenians were not a result of a state-sponsored plan of mass extermination, but of inter-ethnic strife, disease and famine during the turmoil of World War I.

Despite this thesis, most Armenian, Russian, Western, and an increasing number of Turkish scholars believe that the massacres were a case of genocide. For example, most Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll. The event is also said to be the second-most studied case of genocide, and often draws comparison with the Holocaust. To date 24 countries, as discussed below, have officially recognized and accepted its authenticity as Genocide.

The situation of the Armenians in Anatolia

In 1914, before World War I, there were an estimated two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the vast majority of whom were of the Armenian Apostolic faith, with a small number of the Armenian Catholic and Protestant faiths. While the Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia (also called Western Armenia) was large and clustered, there were large numbers of Armenians in the western part of the Ottoman Empire. Many lived in the capital city of Istanbul.

Until the late 19th century, the Armenians were referred to as millet-i sadika (loyal nation) by the Ottomans. This meant that they were living in harmony with other ethnic groups and without any major conflict with the central authority. However the Christian Armenians were subject to Islamic dhimmi laws, which gave them fewer legal rights than Muslim fellow citizens. The Tanzimat gave more rights to the minorities in the middle of the 19th century. However, the long ruling Sultan Hamid suspended the constitution early in his reign and ruled as he saw fit. Despite pressure on the Sultan by the major European countries to treat the Christian minorities more gently, abuses only increased.

The single event that started the chain is most likely the Russian victory over the Ottoman Empire in the War of 1877-78. At the end of this war the Russians took control over a large part of Armenian territory (including the city of Kars). The Russians claimed they were the supporters of Christians within the Ottoman Empire and now they were clearly militarily superior to the Ottomans. The weakening control of the Ottoman government over its empire in the following 15 years led many Armenians to believe that they could regain independence from them.

Before the war

• For more background on this topic, see: Young Turks, Young Turk Revolution, Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire

A minor Armenian unrest in Bitlis Province was suppressed with brutality in 1894. Armenian communities were then attacked for the next three years with no apparent direction from the government but equally without much protection offered either. According to most estimates, 80,000 to 300,000 Armenians were killed between 1894 and 1897.

Just five years before World War I, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the secular Young Turks. The old Sultan Hamid was deposed and his timid younger brother Mehmed V was installed as a figurehead ruler. At first some Armenian political organizations supported the Young Turks, in hopes that there would be a significant change for the better. Some Armenians were elected to the newly restored Ottoman Parliament, and some remained in the parliament

World War I

• For more background on this topic, see: World War I, Caucasus Campaign

Execution of the Genocide

Enver Pasha's response to being decisively defeated at the Battle of Sarikamis was, in part, to blame the Armenians. He ordered that all Armenian recruits in the Ottoman forces be disarmed, demobilized and assigned to labor camps. Most of the Armenian recruits were either executed or turned into road laborers - few survived.

Process and Camps of Deportations

May 25 1915 - by orders from Talat Pasha (Minister of the Interior) for the forced evacuation of hundreds of thousands - possibly over a million - Armenians from across all of Anatolia (except parts of the western coast) to Mesopotamia and what is today Syria. Many went to the Syrian town of Dayr az Zawr and the surrounding desert. The fact that the Turkish government ordered the evacuation of ethnic Armenians at this time is not in dispute. It is claimed, based on a good deal of anecdotal evidence, that the Ottoman government did not provide any facilities to care for the Armenians during their evacuation, nor when they arrived. The Ottoman troops escorting the Armenians have been implicated in not only allowed others to rob, kill and rape the Armenians, but often participated in these activities themselves. In any event, the foreseeable consequence of the government's decision to move the Armenians led to a significant number of deaths.

It is believed that twenty-five major concentration camps existed, under the command of Şükrü Kaya, one of the right hands of Talat Pasha.

The majority of the camps were situated near the Iraqi and Syrian frontiers, and some were only temporary transit camps. Others are said to have been used only as temporary mass burial zones—such as Radjo, Katma, and Azaz—that were closed in Fall 1915. Some authors also maintain that the camps Lale, Tefridje, Dipsi, Del-El, and Ra's al-'Ain were built specifically for those who had a life expectancy of a few days. Like in the cases of the Jewish KAPOs in the concentration camps, the majority of the guards inside the camps were Armenians.

Even though nearly all the camps, including all the major ones, were open air, the rest of the mass killings in other minor camps, was not limited to direct killings; but also to mass burning, poisoning and drowning.

Results of Deportations

The Ottoman government ordered the evacuation or deportation of many Armenians living in Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia. In the city of Edessa (modern Şanlıurfa) the local Armenian population, worried about their fate, revolted (early 1916) against the Ottoman government and took control of the old city. Ottoman forces attacked the city and bombarded it with artillery but the Armenians resisted. The German General in command of the closest Ottoman army to the city, Baron von der Goltz, arrived and negotiated a deal with the Armenians. In exchange for an Armenian surrender and disarmament, the Ottoman government agreed not to deport them. However, the Ottoman government broke the terms of the agreement and did deport the Armenians.

Nature of Deportations

It is believed that over a million were deported. The word "deportation" could be considered as misleading (and some would prefer the word "relocation", as the former means banishment outside a country's borders; it is said that Japanese-Americans, for example, were not "deported" during World War II). Many historians believe that the evacuations were, in practice, a method of mass execution which led to the deaths of many of the Armenian population by forcing them to march endlessly through desert, without food or water or enough protection from local Kurdish or Turkish bandits, and that the members of the special organization were charged to escort the convoys (which meant their destruction).

While it is believed by many that the Armenian genocide was conducted following the declaration of war on late October 1914, according to some sources, on February 1914, during a Turkish-German meeting, a proposition to evacuate the Ottoman Armenians was already put on table. Other pre-war anti-Armenian measures are reported. Donald Bloxham writes for example that in the summer of 1914, Armenian settlements on the Ottoman borders were plundered by Ottoman forces, while Johannes Lepsius in his collection of German records includes reports of excess against the Armenian population in late December 1914, soon after the war began.

In 1914, the Ottoman government passed a new law to support the war effort that required all adult males - up to the age of forty-five - to either be recruited in the Ottoman army or to pay special fees in order to be excluded from service. As a result of this law, most able-bodied men left their homes, leaving only the women, children, and elderly in the Armenian communities. Most of the Armenian recruits were later executed or forced into hard labor work gangs. In the cities of Marash and Zeytoon, Armenian men were conscripted regardless of whether they paid the military tax or not. The Ottoman Empire entered into World War I on October 29, 1914. The Ottoman army, under their war minister Enver Pasha, soon attacked the Russian forces around the city of Kars, in what was then Russian territory. Early in 1915 the Turkish army was utterly defeated (at the Battle of Sarikamis) with massive loss of life. The Russian forces under General Yudenich counter-attacked into Turkish territory, where the Armenian and Muslim communities were interleaved.

Political Round-ups

On March 2, the Armenians of Dörtyol were evacuated by Ottoman authorities. With Russian forces approaching Lake Van, the regional administrator ordered the execution of five Armenian leaders, and a revolt resulted in Van on April 20, against the Ottoman government and in favor of the Russians (according to Turkish sources). On the other hand, it is said that the governor of Van, Jevdet, under the pretext of preventing an Armenian rebellion, justified the attack on the town by the Ottoman army. Nogales for example, reported a plan set by Jevdet to kill every Armenian male in Van. The Russians finally captured Van in late May of 1915. In August the Russian army left and the Turks re-occupied Van. Then in September the Russians forced the Ottoman army out of Van for the second time. By the end of the war, the town of Van was empty and in ruins.

Four days after the beginning of the troubles in Van, on April 24 1915, the Young Turk government (Committee of Union and Progress) arrested several hundred - or, according to Ottoman records, over two thousand, 2345 - Armenian intellectuals. It is believed that most of these were soon executed. It was said that Committee of Union and Progress had tried to stop Tashnak movement among the Armenians.

Every year April 24th, the day political round-ups happened, is the Armenian Genocide Commemoration Holiday.

The Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa)

While there was an official 'special organization' founded in December 1911 by the Ottoman government, a second organization that participated in what led to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenian community was founded by the lttihad ve Terraki. This organization technically appeared in July 1914 and was supposed to differ from the one already existing in one important point; mostly according to the military court, it was meant to be a "government in a government" (needing no orders to act).

Later in 1914, the Ottoman government decided to influence the direction the special organization was to take by releasing criminals from central prisons to be the central elements of this newly formed special organization. According to the Mazhar commissions attached to the tribunal as soon as November 1914, 124 criminals were released from Pimian prison. Many other releases followed; in Ankara a few months later, 49 criminals were released from its central prison. Little by little from the end of 1914 to the beginning of 1915, hundreds, then thousands of prisoners were freed to form the members of this organization. Later, they were charged to escort the convoys of Armenian deportees. Vehib, commander of the Ottoman third army, called those members of the special organization, the “butchers of the human species.”

The organization was led by the Central Committee Members Doctor Nazim, Behaeddin Sakir, Atif Riza, and former Director of Public Security Aziz Bey. The headquarters of Behaeddin Sakir were in Erzurum, from where he directed the forces of the Eastern vilayets. Aziz, Atif and Nazim Beys operated in Istanbul, and their decisions were approved and implemented by Cevat Bey, the Military Governor of Istanbul.

According to the same commissions and other records, the criminals were chosen by a process of selection. They had to be ruthless butchers to be selected as a member of the special organization. The Mazhar commission, during the military court, has provided some lists of those criminals. In one instance, of 65 criminals released, 50 were in prison for murder. Such a disproportionate ratio between those condemned for murder; and others imprisoned for minor crimes is reported to have been generalized. This selection process of criminals was, according to some researchers in the field of comparative genocide studies, who specialize in the Armenian cases, clearly indicative of the government's intention to commit mass murder of its Armenian population.

Military tribunal

Main article: Executors of the Armenian Genocide

Domestic Courts-Martial

Domestic Courts-Martials began 23 November 1918. These courts were designed by Sultan Mehmed VI, which blamed Committee of Union and Progress for the destruction of the empire through pushing it into WWI. Armenian issue played as tool in these courts to punish Committee of Union and Progress leadership. Most of the documents generated in these courts later moved to international trials. By January 1919, a report to Sultan Mehmed VI find out 130 suspects, most of them were high officials. Mehmed Talat Pasha and Enver had left Istanbul, before 1919, on the fact that Sultan Mehmed VI would not accept any verdict that does not include their life. The term Three Pashas were used explaining the prominent leadership that pushed the Ottomans into WWI.

Courts-Martials disbanded the Committee of Union and Progress organization, which actively ruled the Ottoman Empire for ten years. All the assets of the organization moved into treasury. The assests of the people who have been found guilty moved to "teceddüt firkasi". According to given verdics, except the Three Pashas rest was transferred to jails in Bekiraga and then they were moved to Malta. Three Pashas were found guildy in absentia. Courts-Martials blamed the members of Ittihat Terakki persuing the war that does not fit into the notion of Millet (Ottoman Empire).

International Trials

On 24 May 1915 the Triple Entente warned the Ottoman Empire that "In the view of these...crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization ... the Allied governments announce publicly.. that they will hold personally responsible... all members of the Ottoman government and those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres."

Following the Armistice of Mudros in January 1919, the preliminary Peace Conference in Paris (Paris Peace Conference, 1919) established "The Commission on Responsibilities and Sanctions" which was chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Lansing. Following the commission's work, several articles were added to the treaty, and the acting government of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Mehmed VI and Damat Adil Ferit Pasha, were summoned to trial. The Treaty of Sèvres gave recognition of the First Republic of Armenia and developed a mechanism to bring to trial the criminals of "barbarous and illegitimate methods of warfare... offenses against the laws and customs of war and the principles of humanity".

Article 230 of the Treaty of Sèvres required the Ottoman Empire, “to hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the Ottoman Empire on August 1, 1914.“

At the Military Trials in Istanbul in 1919 many of those responsible for the genocide were sentenced to death in absentia, after having escaped trial in 1918. It is believed that the accused succeeded in destroying the majority of the documents that could be used as evidence against them before they escaped. Admiral Calthorpe, the British High Commissioner, described the destruction of documents: “Just before the Armistice, officials had been going to the archives department at night and making a clean sweep of most of the documents.” Aydemir, S.S., on the other hand, writes in his "Makedonyadan Ortaasyaya Enver Pasa.":

“Before the flight of the top CUP leaders, Talat Pasa stopped by at the waterfront residence of one of his friends on the shore of Arnavudköy, depositing there a suitcase of documents. It is said that the documents were burned in the basement's furnace. Indeed ... the documents and other papers of the CUP's Central Committee are nowhere to be found.”

The martial court established the will of the CUP to eliminate the Armenians physically, via its special organization.

The Court Martial, Istanbul, 1919 pronounced sentences as follows:

"The Court Martial taking into consideration the above-named crimes declares, unanimously, the culpability as principal factors of these crimes the fugitives Talat Pasha, former Grand Vizir, Enver Efendi, former War Minister, struck off the register of the Imperial Army, Cemal Efendi, former Navy Minister, struck off too from the Imperial Army, and Dr. Nazim Efendi, former Minister of Education, members of the General Council of the Union & Progress, representing the moral person of that party;... the Court Martial pronounces, in accordance with said stipulations of the Law the death penalty against Talat, Enver, Cemal, and Dr. Nazim."

Casualties, 1914 to 1923

While there is no clear consensus as to how many Armenians lost their lives during what is called the Armenian genocide and what followed, there seems to be a consensus among Western scholars, with the exception of few dissident and Turkish national historians, as to the period between 1914 to 1923, over a million Armenians might have perished. The recent tendency seems to be, either presenting 1.2 million as a figure or even 1.5 million, while more moderately, "over a million" is presented, as the Turkish historian Fikret Adanir estimates, but this estimate excludes what followed 1917 - 1918.

The Position of Turkey

The Republic of Turkey does not accept that the deaths of Armenians under "evacuation" or "deportation" (Turkey uses the word "relocation") of Armenians can be attributed to an intention to eliminate the Armenian people. Turkey also denies that any systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing took place during the time during which the Ottoman Empire was crumbling.

Relations between Turkey and Armenia remain frozen. Turkey has closed its land borders with Armenia, citing Armenian military control of Nagorno-Karabagh and occupation of surrounding Azerbaijani territories. Armenia has repeatedly declared that it is ready for relations and an open border without preconditions. Turkey claims that opening its borders would show approval of the occupation of Nagorno-Karabagh.

In March 2005, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invited Turkish, Armenian and international historians to form a Commission to establish the events of 1915. The offer was accepted by Armenia but only under the condition Turkey accept the genocide claims first.

The Position of Turkish authorities

Further information: Denial of Armenian genocide

Turkish historians have been very slow in responding to Armenian claims, even though nearly a century has passed since the events. In 1975, Sevket Sureyya Aydemir, Turkish historian and biographer, summarized the reasons for this delay. He said, "The best course, I believe, is not to dwell on this subject and allow both sides to forget (calm) this part of history." The same view was shared by the foreign ministry of Turkey at that time.

With Kamuran Gurun for first time a controversial period of the Ottoman Empire began to be questioned by the Republic of Turkey. Other Turkish institutions followed Kamuran Gurun. Zeki Kuneralp, a former ambassador, has a different explanation regarding why it took so much time to publish the Ottoman records; he declared: The liabilities of not publishing the historical documents outweigh the advantages. The thesis brought by Armenian and foreign historians were then answered by analyzing the casualties of deportations, and the alleged casualties of inter-ethnic fighting, etc. Initial studies were basically on aggregated data issues, through classifications and categorizations. These discussions have been moved to issues such as why the Armenian resistance force failed to support a sustainable Armenian state and Ottoman millitary problems under insurgency. Most of these activities aim to find out and analyze the relationships of the controversial issues surrounding Ottoman state of the time; intending to have a better understanding of “why the choices of the Ottoman system had been shaped as they were”. These questions aim to bring the complexity of Ottoman history and dynamics of a blacked-out period beyond the current available arguments to surface so that the correct lessons in prevention of these activities can be taken.

Political Arguments

• Turkish authorities hold the position that the deaths were the result of the turmoils of World War I and that the Ottoman Empire was fighting against Russian, who backed the Armenian militia. Claims based on non-existent Armenian unrest, or non-existant ethnic-religious conflicts, concluding everything as a state organized activity, are unconnected to historical facts. There was a political move toward creating a "Republic of Armenia". The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkanization process were in the same period.

• Turkish authorities hold the position that the Ottoman Empire did not hold as much control as the opposing parties claim. Turkey accepts that there are Armenian losts because of Ottoman Empire decisions. Turkey also maintains that Ottoman bureaucrats and military members who did not do their job in securing the life of Armenians have been put to trial.

• The Forced Deportations by themselves can not be classified as acts of genocide of the state. Turkish authorities claims that in 1915 there was only one railway that connects west-east and that the path of what it considers relocation was not a conspiracy to exterminate Armenians. Turkish authorities strongly reject claims that the locations of the camps which are mentioned in some sources are a result of a conspiracy to bury Armenians in deserts. Dayr az-Zawr is a district along the europhites and one of the unique places far away from any military activity; thus, Dayr az-Zawr's selection as a burying site in a deserted location is rejected. They attribute the graves in these areas to difficulties of traveling under very hard conditions. The conditions of these camps reflected the dire condition of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was facing Gallipoli at the west, and the Caucasus Campaign at the east. Turkish authorities recall that WWI precipitated the end of the empire financially and economically.

• Without opening the archives of Armenia, the population moves can not be really constructed in both sides and the numbers that are presented would always be in error.

• Turkish authorities hold the position that historical conciliation would help political conciliation between the Turkish authorities and Armenia, even if there are other issues between the states. Political conciliation before the historical conciliation or using the genocide terminology in every aspect of the communications seems to be unrealistic.

Citations

As a scholarly study area, the field is highly divided, as the camps on both side of this issue approach it very strongly.

• Turkish authorities constantly brought arguments related with single source (Ottoman or a Western) issues. They point out that without doing a triangulation, even if the facts were reported correctly, the conclusions drawn can be false. It is also possible to look at secondary sources in the Ottoman Archives of the period such as budget, allocations, decisions/reasons of requests. There are also personal records such as Mehmed Talat Pasha's personal notes. They constantly point out the general attitude Sick man of Europe of the time and how it deforms perceptions. They claim the conclusions reached toward genocide are highly biased.

• Some very "central" (most cited) sources are actively questioned on the basis that they do not include a single reference from the Ottoman Archives. Mainly occupying force's sources of the period (British, French) on the basis of their Intelligence (information gathering) issues. There are concerns that these sources may promote propaganda.

• Enver Zia Karal (Ankara University), Salahi Sonyel (British historian and public activist), Ismail Binark (Director of Ottoman archives, Ankara), Sinasi Orel (director of a much publicized project on declassifying documents on Ottoman Armenians), Kamuran Gurun (former diplomat), Mim Kemal Oke, Justin McCarthy, and others have cited the "Blue Book" by James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee and have insisted that it lacks credibility.

• Reverse enginering of activities aimed to provide evidence without covering opposing reasoning, such as "Map of Genocide" which they claim contains factual problems. In this map, for the methodology behind "Centers of Massacre and Deportation" which was developed adding data from three different sources, (the data in these sources are also aggregate data), is questioned. Its use as a source of validation among Western scholars has been questioned.

• They bring up points on arguments that there was a secret arrangement which can be traced through mismatches on orders and distributions of the forced deportations. They say without considering (or not checking) periphery central transmissions on how to deal with emerging issues are actively questioned. There are many periphery central transmissions on how to deal with emerging issues, such as allocating more than 10% of the destination population and its consequances to the local economy.

Casualties

Turkish authorities also disagree over the number of casualties.

Turkey believes the number of deaths ranges from 200,000 to 600,000.

Turkey states that according to demographic studies there were fewer than 1.5 million Armenians living in those areas, before the WWI. However, 1.5 million of Armenian population is not even the question, but the suggesting figures of over a million Armenian deaths affected by the deportations during the WWI is over inflated.

• If the sheer count of deaths is the way to decide on the situation, Turkey reminds that Muslims who perished during the same period is much higher then 1.5 million. Yusuf Halacoglu maintains that over 500,000 Turks were killed by Armenians. While the Turkish government now publicizes those figures of Turks allegedly being killed by Armenians.

• Turkish authorities accept the idea that the Armenian loss between the onset of WWI and the Armistice of Mudros, which gave control of the Ottoman State to the Triple Entente, is not limited to deportations. Those lost cannot be attributed to a statewise organized activity.

Yusuf Halacoglu, the director of the Turkish history foundation, presented lower figures of Armenian casualties. He estimates that a total of 56,000 Armenians perished during the period due to war conditions, and less than 10 thousand were actually killed. This study is still absent from the Turkish foreign affairs publications.

Yusuf Halacoglu through covering military records searched the "process of deportation". His time limitation was reported between 09/06/1915 and 08/02/1916 ("tacir law"). He claims that records are very ordered and that they can be verified using cross analysis. He says in his study the centers of "tachir" was in Adana, Ankara, Dörtyol, Eskişehir, Halep, İzmit, Karahisarı sahib, Kayseri, Mamuretülaziz, Sivas, Trabzon, Yozgat, Kütahya and Birecik. He states that numbers are originating from centers claims a total 391,040 Armenian were applied. His "personal" number is 438,758 through tracing through individual records. The grand totals which originated moving people from different localities and different times and they include double counts, they are around 458,000. The same number reported as half a million. When the Ottoman grand totals are compared to details, he says there is a discrepancy of 26,064 which he locates on the of Halep. However, he also claims that subtraction of this group can not be substantiated over the grand total, which could minimize the difference. He claims that differences are associated with tracing issues that are inherited to the analysis process. From desdination records, 356,084 Armenians were reported.

• Yusuf Halacoglu also analyzed the military records on the reasons given for the lost during "Tacir". He claims that 500 of the emigrants (deportees) were lost on the path of Erzurum-Erzincan, 2000 were lost around Urfa, 2000 were lost around Mardin. Yusuf Halacoglu also analyzed the military records on the non-Armenian casualties related with deportations. He states that Armenians were not treated as prisoners, which gave them chance to respond to local populations during the migrations (deportations). He claims that there is no record on the initiation of the local conflicts with Armenians, but just around 5-6 thousand in Dersim, and grand total of this category in all areas reaches to 9-10 thousand.

Holocaust Similarities

Turkish authorities also deny similarities with the Holocaust

• Unlike the Armenians, the Jewish population of Germany and Europe did not agitate for separation. Armenian scholars reply that Holocaust deniers make similar false claims, namely the Jews agitated to destroy Germany by allying with the Soviet Union to bring Bolshevism into Germany.

• Arguments disputing the similarities to the Holocaust are as follows: (a) there is no record of (neither from origination archives nor from destination archives in Syria) an effort to develop a systematic process and efficient means of killing, (b) there are no lists or other methods for tracing the Armenian population to assemble and kill as many people as possible, (c) there was no resource allocation to exterminate Armenians (biological, chemical warefare allocations), and the use of morphine as a mass extermination agent is not accepted; in fact, there was a constant increase in food and support expenses and these efforts continued after the end of deportations, (d) there is no record of Armenians in forced deportations being treated as prisoners, (e) the claims regarding prisoners apply only to the leaders of the Armenian militia, but did not extend to ethnic profiling; the size of the security force needed to develop these claims was beyond the power of the Ottoman Empire during 1915, (f) there is no record of prisons designed or built to match the claims of a Holocaust, (g) there were no public speeches organized by the central government targeting Armenians

The Position of Turkish intellectuals

Opposition

Further information: Denial of Armenian genocide

Almost all Turkish intellectuals, scientists and historians accept that many Armenians died during the conflict, but they do not necessarily classify these events as genocide. Some academics point to the disputed number of mostly Kurdish casualties killed by Armenians during the period, and argue that Armenians were ordered to relocate to save the victimized Kurds and Turks.

Support

Some Turkish intellectuals support the genocide thesis despite opposition from Turkish nationalists; these include Ragip Zarakolu, Ali Ertem, Taner Akçam and Halil Berktay.

The reasons why some Turkish intellectuals accept theses of genocide are threefold.

First, they cite the fact that the organization members were criminals, and that those criminals were specifically sent to escort the Armenians. This is regarded as sufficient evidence of the government's criminal intent. Second, the fact that Armenians living outside the war zone were also removed, contradicts the thesis of military necessity put forward by the Ottoman government. Thirdly, it is argued that the thesis of simple relocation is flawed, due to the government's lack of dispositions which a “resettlement” would require. This lack of dispositions has been emphasized as evidence of the government's intent to eliminate the displaced Armenians. Dr. Taner Akçam, a Turkish specialist, writes on this point:

The fact that neither at the start of the deportations, nor en route, and nor at the locations, which were declared to be their initial halting places, were there any single arrangement required for the organization of a people's migration, is sufficient proof of the existence of this plan of annihilation.

These Turkish intellectuals believe that 800,000 or more Armenians lost their lives during the events (Orhan Pamuk counting a million Armenians and 30 000 Kurds). Others put the number between 300,000 and 600,000.

Orhan Pamuk

During a February 2005 interview with Das Magazin, Orhan Pamuk, a famous Turkish novelist, made statements implicating Turkey in massacres against Armenians and persecution of the Kurds, declaring: "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it". Subjected to a hate campaign, he left Turkey, before returning in 2005 in order to defend his right to freedom of speech: "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo. But we have to be able to talk about the past" . The Turkish government then brought criminal charges against him. On January 23, 2006, however, the charges of "insulting Turkishness" were dropped, a move welcomed by the EU - that they had been brought at all was still a matter of contention for European politicians.

The Position of International Community

Academic Recognition

There is a general agreement among Western historians that the Armenian Genocide did happen. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (the major body of scholars who study genocide in North America and Europe), for instance, formally recognize the event and consider it to be undeniable. Some consider denial to be a form of hate speech or/and historical revisionism.

Many newspapers for a long time would not use the word genocide without disclaimers such as "alleged" and many continue to do so. A number of those policies have now been reversed so that even casting doubt on the term is against editorial policy, as is the case with the New York Times.

Official Recognition

However, this academic recognition has not always been followed by governments and media. Many governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Georgia, do not officially use the word genocide to describe these events, due in part to their strong political and commercial ties with Turkey (such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline), although some individual government officials have used the term. For example, on March 20, 2006, Georgian Ambassador to Armenia Revaz Gachechiladze stated, "We sympathize with the sister nation but taking decisions of the kind we should take into account the international situation. When the time comes Georgia will do everything within the limits of the possible for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the international community including Georgia."

Although there is no federal recognition of the Armenian Genocide, 39 of the 50 U.S. states including Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin recognize the events of 1915 to 1917 as genocide.

In recent years, parliaments of a number of countries with citizens of Armenian descent, have officially recognized the event as genocide. Two recent examples are France and Switzerland. Turkish entry talks with the European Union were met with a number of calls to consider the event as genocide, though it was eventually not a specific stipulation.

Countries officially recognizing the Armenian genocide include Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Vatican City and Venezuela.

In September 2004, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial at Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan.

In Switzerland, Turkish historian Yusuf Halacoglu faced charges of violation of Swiss laws against holocaust denial as a result of a speech he made in Winterthur in 2004, but nothing came of it, and he was quickly released.

International bodies that recognize the Armenian genocide include the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the European Parliamentary Assembly, and the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, the International Center for Transitional Justice, based on a report prepared for TARC, the Association of Genocide Scholars, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the World Council of Churches, the Turkish Human Rights Organization, the League for Human Rights , the Parliament of Kurdistan in Exile (an unofficial organisation with terrorist links and no parliamentary powers), and the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal.

Impact on culture

Memorial

The idea for the memorial came in 1965, at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the genocide. Two years later the memorial (by architects Kalashian and Mkrtchyan) was completed at the Tsitsernakaberd hill above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan. The 44 metre stele symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. 12 slabs are positioned in a circle, representing 12 lost provinces in present day Turkey. In the centre of the circle, in depth of 1.5 metres, there is an eternal flame. Along the park at the memorial there is a 100 metre wall with names of towns and villages where massacres are known to have taken place. In 1995 a small underground circular museum was opened at the other end of the park where one can learn basic information about the events in 1915. Some photos taken by German photographers (Turkish allies during World War I) including photos taken by Armin Wegner and some publications about the genocide are also displayed. Near the museum is a spot where foreign statesmen plant trees in memory of the genocide. Each April 24th (Armenian Genocide Commemoration Holiday) hundreds of thousands of people walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers (usually red carnations or tulips) around the eternal flame. Armenians around the world mark the genocide in different ways, and many memorials have been built in Armenian Diaspora communities.

Art

The well-known metal band System of a Down, four musicians all of Armenian descent but living in California, frequently promote awareness of the Armenian Genocide. Every year, the band puts on a Souls concert tour in support of the cause. The band wrote the song "P.L.U.C.K. (Politically Lying, Unholy, Cowardly Killers.)" about this genocide in their eponymous debut album. The booklet reads: "System Of A Down would like to dedicate this song to the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Turkish Government in 1915." Other songs, including the hit single Chop Suey! (from the album Toxicity) and the song Holy Mountains (from Hypnotize), are also sometimes believed to be about the Armenian genocide.

The Armenian Genocide is also a popular theme in Armenian works of literature, and is a major theme of Atom Egoyan's film Ararat (2002).

See also

• Post Armenian Genocide timeline
• The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, a novel by Franz Werfel
• Ararat, a film by Atom Egoyan
• First Republic of Armenia
• Armenian diaspora
• Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
• Denial of Armenian genocide
• Assyrian genocide
• Adana holocaust
• Hamidian massacres
• Aftermath of World War I
• Turkish War of Independence
• Turkish National Movement
• Treaty of Kars
• Treaty of Sèvres
• Treaty of Lausanne
• Mark Lambert Bristol, United States High Commissioner in Turkey (1919-27).
• Foreign relations of the Republic of Turkey
• Accession of Turkey to the European Union
• Armenian quote
• History of Ottoman Armenia
• Fall of the Ottoman Empire
• Turkish-Armenian War

Notes

1. Peter Der Manuelian, Armenian Library and Museum of America.
2. William S. Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945, Franklin Watts; Revised edition (1984). Also see: William A. Schabas, Genocide in International Law: The Crimes of Crimes, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 16-17
3. The Ottoman Armenians: Victims of Great Power Diplomacy (Book Review). Mango, Andrew. Asian Affairs, Jun88, Vol. 19 Issue 2.
4. Salahi Ransdam, The Ottoman Armenians: Victims of great power diplomacy 1987.
5. Erickson, Edward J. Bayonets on Musa Dagh: Ottoman Counterinsurgency Operations – 1915 in the Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 28 Issue 3. (June 2005)
6. Interview with Yusuf Halacoglu on TAHA AKYOL's "Egrisiyle Doğrusuyla" at CNN TURK.
7. More exactly, 2345, See: Uras E., Tarihte Ermenliler ve Ermeni Meselesi, 2nd ed., (Istanbul, 1976), p.612
8. Gürün K., "Ermeni Dosyası", TTK Basımevi, Ankara 1983
9. See, for example, Huseyin Chelik, The 1915 Armenian Revolt in Van: Eyewitness Testimony, in The Armenians in the Late Ottoman Period, The Turkish Historical Society For The Council Of Culture, Arts And Publications Of The Grand National Assembly Of Turkey, Ankara, 2001, pp. 87-108
10. Ussher, Clarence D. and Grace Knapp, An American Physician in Turkey; A Narrative of Adventures in Peace and in War. Boston and New York City: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917. More particularly the chapters, XVII, XVIII and XIX (which is titled FUN FOR JEVDET BEY.)
11. Rafael de Nogales, Four Years Beneath the Crescent Published in London, 1926, end of chapter V and VI.
12. See, for example, Le Siècle des camps by Joël Kotek and Pierre Rigoulot, JC Lattes, 2000. Also, Ahmed Djémal pacha et le sort des déportés arméniens de Syrie-Palestine by Raymond H. Kévorkian, in Der Völkermord an den Armeniern und die Shoah, Zürich: Chronos, 2002. by Hans-Lukas KIESER et Dominik J. SCHALLER (dir.), and from the same author: L’extermination des déportés arméniens ottomans dans les camps de concentration de Syrie-Mésopotamie (1915-1916), la deuxième phase du génocide, in Revue d’Histoire arménienne contemporaine II (1998). Concentration camps map, in, J.M. Winter, professor at Yale, America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Cambridge University Press (January, 2004).
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Eitan Belkind was a Nili member, who infiltrated the Ottoman army as an official. He was assigned to the headquarters of Camal Pasha. He claims to have witnessed the burning of 5000 Armenians, quoted in Yair Auron, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide. New Brunswick, N.J., 2000, pp. 181, 183. Lt. Hasan Maruf, of the Ottoman army, describes how a population of a village were taken all together, and then burned. See, British Foreign Office 371/2781/264888, Appendices B., p. 6). Also, the Commander of the Third Army, Vehib's 12 pages affidavit, which was dated December 5, 1918, presented in the Trabzon trial series (March 29, 1919) included in the Key Indictment(published in Takvimi Vekayi, No. 3540, May 5, 1919), report such a mass burning of the population of an entire village near Mus. S. S. McClure write in his work, Obstacles to Peace, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. pp. 400-401, that in Bitlis, Mus and Sassoun, The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in tile various camps was to burn them. And also that, Turkish prisoners who had apparently witnessed some of these scenes were horrified and maddened at the remembering the sight. They told the Russians that the stench of the burning human flesh permeated the air for many days after. The Germans, Ottoman allies, also witnessed the way Armenians were burned according to the Israeli historian, Bat Ye’or, who writes: The Germans, allies of the Turks in the First World War, … saw how civil populations were shut up in churches and burned, or gathered en masse in camps, tortured to death, and reduced to ashes,… (See: B. Ye'or, The Dhimmi. The Jews and Christians under Islam, Trans. from the French by D. Maisel P. Fenton and D. Liftman, Cranbury, N.J.: Frairleigh Dickinson University, 1985. p. 95)
18. During the Trabzon trial series, of the Martial court (from the sittings between March 26 and Mat 17, 1919), the Trabzons Health Services Inspector Dr. Ziya Fuad wrote in a report that Dr. Saib, caused the death of children with the injection of morphine, the information was allegedly provided by two physicians (Drs. Ragib and Vehib), both Dr. Saib colleagues at Trabzons Red Crescent hospital, where those atrocities were said to have been committed. (See: Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Turkish Military Tribunal’s Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series, Genocide Study Project, H. F. Guggenheim Foundation, published in The Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 1997). Dr. Ziya Fuad, and Dr. Adnan, public health services director of Trabzon, submitted affidavits, reporting a cases, in which, two school buildings were used to organize children and then sent them on the mezzanine, to kill them with a toxic gas equipment. This case was presented during the Session 3, p.m., 1 April 1919, also published in the Constantinople newspaper Renaissance, 27 April 1919 (for more information, see: Vahakn N. Dadrian, The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of Ottoman Armenians, in The Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1, no. 2 (1986): 169-192). The Turkish surgeon, Dr. Haydar Cemal wrote in Türkce Istanbul, No. 45, 23 December 1918, also published in Renaissance, 26 December 1918, that on the order of the Chief Sanitation Office of the IIIrd Army in January 1916, when the spread of typhus was an acute problem, innocent Armenians slated for deportation at Erzican were inoculated with the blood of typhoid fever patients without rendering that blood ‘inactive’. Jeremy Hugh Baron writes : Individual doctors were directly involved in the massacres, having poisoned infants, killed children and issued false certificates of death from natural causes. Nazim's brother-in-law Dr. Tevfik Rushdu, Inspector-General of Health Services, organized the disposal of Armenian corpses with thousands of kilos of lime over six months; he became foreign secretary from 1925 to 1938. (See: Jeremy Hugh Baron, Genocidal Doctors, publish in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, November, 1999, 92, pp.590-593). The psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton, writes in a parenthesis when introducing the crimes of NAZI doctors in his book Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Basic Books, (1986) p. xii: (Perhaps Turkish doctors, in their participation in the genocide against the Armenians, come closest, as I shall later suggest).
19. Oscar S. Heizer, the American consul at Trabzon, reports: This plan did not suit Nail Bey .... Many of the children were loaded into boats and taken out to sea and thrown overboard. (See: U.S. National Archives. R.G. 59. 867. 4016/411. April 11, 1919 report.) The Italian consul of Trabzon in 1915, Giacomo Gorrini, writes: I saw thousands of innocent women and children placed on boats which were capsized in the Black Sea. (See: Toronto Globe, August 26, 1915) Hoffman Philip, the American Charge at Constantinople chargé d'affairs, writes: Boat loads sent from Zor down the river arrived at Ana, one thirty miles away, with three fifths of passengers missing. (Cipher telegram, July 12, 1916. U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59.867.48/356.) The Trabzon trials reported Armenians having been drown in the Black Sea. (Takvimi Vekdyi, No. 3616, August 6, 1919, p. 2.)
20. Cited by Pierre Caraman in L'ouverture des archives d'Istanbul in Nouvel Observateur, January-Febuary (1989) p. 145

References

• Akcam, Taner, From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide, Zed Books, 2004
• Akcam, Taner, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, Metropolitan Books, 2006
• Balakian, Peter (2003). The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response. HarperCollins. ISBN 0060198400.
• Bartov, Omer, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide and Modern Identity, Oxford Univ. Press, 2000
• Dadrian, Vahakn, N., The History of the Armenian Genocide: Ethnic Conflict from the Balkans to Anatolia to the Caucasus, Berghahn Books, 1995
• Dündar, Fuat, Ittihat ve Terakki'nin Müslümanlari Iskan Politikasi (1913-18), Iletisim, 2001
• Fisk, Robert, The First Holocaust. In The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East; (October 2005) London. Fourth Estate, pp.388-436. ISBN 184115007X
• Gust, Wolfgang, Der Völkermord an den Armeniern, Zu Klampen, 2005
• Lepsius, Johannes, Deutschland und Armenien 1914-1918, Sammlung diplomatischer Aktenstücke, Donat & Temmen Verlag, 1986
• Lewy, Guenter, The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2005 (NEW PUBLICATION)
• McCarthy, Justin (1996). Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922. Darwin Press, Incorporated. ISBN 0878500944.
• Melson, Robert, Revolution and Genocide. On the Origins of the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust, The University of Chicago Press, 1996
• Power, Samantha, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide, Harper 2003
• Wallimann, Isidor (ed.): Genocide and the Modern Age: Etiology and Case Studies of Mass Death, Syracuse Univ. Press, 2000
• "The Armenian Genocide: A Bibliography". University of Michigan, Dearborn: Armenian Research Center. Retrieved March 18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• "The Armenian Genocide: A Supplemental Bibliography, 1993-1996". University of Michigan, Dearborn: Armenian Research Center. Retrieved March 18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Websites supporting the genocide theses

• Armenian Genocide Institute-Museum (Yerevan)
• The Armenian Genocide documentation series and books from the Gomidas Institute.
• Documents from German state archives on the Armenian genocide during the World War I, in German and English.
• Human Rights Action. Includes some quotes, fact sheets and denial attempts.
• Learn more about this genocide through the resources including bibliography, quotes, and more.
• Eyewitness Accounts of the Genocide
• Armenian National Institute
• The Genocide Education Project - Nonprofit Educational Organization
• TeachGenocide.org – Teaching Resources on the Armenian Genocide
• French site with works and debunking revisionists
• History, articles, petition, pictures, quotations, forum, videos..
• The Armenian Genocide in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish, Russian
• Life stories of twenty survivors of Armenian Genocide

Media

• Armenians to mark genocide Rockland Journal-News
• BBC News article Turkey must admit Armenia dead'
• Australian Ryde City Officially Recognized Armenian Genocide and Called on Commonwealth Government to Do the Same
• Hindustan Times columnist condemns Armenian genocide
• The Armenian Genocide: 90 Years Later Turkey Continues to Deny the Extermination of a People. 22:15 minute Real Audio. Guests: Peter Balakian, Zanku Armenian. Interviewer: Amy Goodman. Democracy Now!. Friday, April 22 2005. Retrieved May 12 2005.
• The Straight Dope: Was there genocide in early 20th century Armenia?
• Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide: Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 9, Number 1, Spring 1995, pages 1-22, Roger W. Smith, Eric Markusen and Robert Jay Lifton.
• Obelus.org Remembering the Armenian Genocide
• Vahakn Dadrian responds to Guenter Lewy Guenter Lewy published an article in the Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2005) denying the Armenian Genocide.
• Time Europe Magazine apologizes for its dissemination of a denialist propaganda DVD Time Europe Magazine, Vol. 166, No. 16, October 17, 2005, Letters.

Websites opposing the genocide theses

• Turkish Weekly
• Turkish Historical Society
• Armenian Issue / Allegation Facts by Turkish Ministry of Culture
• Armenians in Ottoman official documents
• Turkey's official site that contains Ottoman archives regarding the issue.
• Turkish ministry of foreign affairs.

Media

• Faruk Logoglu's article on Washington Times:To reconcile Turks and Armenians O. Faruk Logoglu is the former ambassador of Turkey to the United States.
• Dr. Sedat Laciner's article on The Journal of Turkish Weekly:The Armenian Issue: Inventing a Past Dr. Sedat Laciner is a member of Turkish Armenian Relations National Committee and International Strategic Research Organization.
• Bruce Fein's article: An Armenian and Muslim Tragedy? Yes! Genocide? No! Bruce Fein is an attorney and a frequent The Washington Times contributor
• Bruce Fein's article:Genocides by Turkey's Armenian Genocide Critics
• Revisiting Armenian Genocide by Guenter Lewy Guenter Lewy is professor emeritus of political science, University of Massachusetts, and the author of The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (University of Utah Press, 2005).

Independent Studies

• Track Two Diplomacy Program in Turkey and the Caucasus by Center for Global Studies, American University

Mutual Perceptions Research (Armenia/Turkey) (*.doc file) "The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) and the Armenian Sociological Association (HASA) have organized a Mutual Perceptions Research Project. Each group is carrying out sociological research to identify key issues of cultural understanding between the neighboring countries, including the perception of Turks by Armenians and of Armenians by Turks. The study focuses on the perceptions of the majority populations in each country. The combined results will constitute study findings. Representatives from each team met in Yerevan and fieldwork was undertaken in both countries. The results of the research were presented at an international seminar jointly organized by TESEV and HASA in Tbilisi, Georgia."

• International Center Transitional Justice (ICTJ) report Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC)

Full report (*.pdf file) Armenian and Turkish versions of the report are also available on the above mentioned website.

• The Genocide against the Armenians 1915-1923 and the relevance of the 1948 Genocide Convention, professor Alfred De Zayas report. Professor De Zaya is an ex-secretary of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

• History of Armenia
• Genocides
• History of Turkey
• World War I
• Caucasus
• Historiography