Author: Babajanian Karo

LE PRESIDENT SARKISSIAN A DEFENDU LE CHOIX EN FAVEUR DE L’UNION ECONOMIQUE EURASIATIQUE

ARMENIE

Les agences de presse reproduisent des extraits de l’entretien
du President Sarkissian avec la chaîne russe Rossia-24 consacre
aux relations armeno-russes, au centenaire du Genocide armenien, au
conflit du HK etc. Le Chef de l’Etat a defendu le choix de l’Armenie en
faveur de l’UEE, qu’il a qualifie de justifie. L’Armenie ne fera que
beneficier de cette adhesion, meme si cette union fait actuellement
face a des problèmes economiques. L’Armenie a eu accès a un marche
de 170 millions de personnes, ce qui est une reussite pour un petit
pays. Il a cite trois arguments expliquant le choix en faveur de l’UEE
: les pays de l’UE et notamment la Russie demeurent les principaux
marches pour les produits armeniens ; de nombreux Armeniens travaillent
en Russie et envoient des transferts a leurs familles en Armenie ;
la Russie est le principal investisseur en Armenie.

Le Chef de l’Etat a par ailleurs accuse Ankara d’avoir elargi cette
annee ses >, non seulement en rejetant l’invitation
armenienne de participer a la commemoration du centenaire du Genocide
le 24 avril a Erevan, mais en deplacant la date de la commemoration
de la bataille de Gallipoli le meme jour, afin de perturber les
manifestations prevues a Erevan : .

Extrait de la revue de presse de l’Ambassade de France en Armenie en
date du 8 avril 2015

mercredi 15 avril 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

TURKEY RECALLS AMBASSADOR OVER POPE’S ARMENIA GENOCIDE WORDS

The Associated Press
April 12, 2015 Sunday 8:20 PM GMT

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press
VATICAN CITY

VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis on Sunday marked the 100th anniversary
of the slaughter of Armenians by calling the massacre by Ottoman Turks
“the first genocide of the 20th century” and urging the international
community to recognize it as such. Turkey immediately responded by
recalling its ambassador and accusing Francis of spreading hatred and
“unfounded claims.”

Francis issued the pronouncement during a Mass in St. Peter’s
Basilica commemorating the centenary that was attended by Armenian
church leaders and President Serge Sarkisian, who praised the pope
for calling a spade a spade and “delivering a powerful message to
the international community.”

“The words of the leader of a church with 1 billion followers cannot
but have a strong impact,” he told The Associated Press.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed
by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey, however, denies a genocide took place. It has insisted that
the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.

Francis defended his words by saying it was his duty to honor the
memory of the innocent men, women and children who were “senselessly”
murdered by Ottoman Turks.

“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” he said.

He said similar massacres are under way today against Christians who
because of their faith are “publicly and ruthlessly put to death –
decapitated, crucified, burned alive – or forced to leave their
homeland,” a reference to the Islamic State group’s assault against
Christians in Iraq and Syria.

Francis called on the world community, heads of state and international
organizations to recognize the truth of what transpired to prevent such
“horrors” from repeating themselves, and to oppose all such crimes
“without ceding to ambiguity or compromise.”

Turkey has fiercely lobbied to prevent countries, including the Holy
See, from officially recognizing the Armenian massacre as genocide
and reacted strongly to Francis’ declaration.

“The pope’s statement, which is far from historic and legal truths,
is unacceptable,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted.

“Religious positions are not places where unfounded claims are made
and hatred is stirred.”

The Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican’s envoy in Ankara, and
then announced it was recalling its own ambassador to the Vatican
for consultations.

In a statement, the ministry said the Turkish people would not
recognize the pope’s statement “which is controversial in every aspect,
which is based on prejudice, which distorts history and reduces the
pains suffered in Anatolia under the conditions of the First World
War to members of just one religion.”

It accused Francis of deviating from his message of peace and
reconciliation during his November visit to Turkey.

Several European countries recognize the massacres as genocide, though
Italy and the United States, for example, have avoided using the term
officially given the importance they place on Turkey as an ally.

The Holy See, too, places great importance in its relationship with
the moderate Muslim nation, especially as it demands that Muslim
leaders condemn the Islamic State group slaughter of Christians.

But Francis’ willingness to rile Ankara with his words showed once
again that he has few qualms about taking diplomatic risks for issues
close to his heart. And the massacre of Armenians is indeed close
to the Vatican’s heart given that Armenia is held up as the first
Christian nation, dating from 301.

That said, Francis is not the first pope to call the massacre a
genocide. St. John Paul II wrote in a 2001 joint declaration with the
Armenian church leader, Karenkin II, that the deaths were considered
“the first genocide of the 20th century.”

But the context of Francis’ pronunciation was different and
significant: in St. Peter’s during an Armenian rite service with
the Armenian church and state leadership in attendance on the
100th anniversary of the slaughter. And his call for international
acknowledgement of what happened went beyond what John Paul had
written.

Francis’ words had a deeply moving effect among Armenians in the
basilica, many of whom wept. At the end of the service, the Armenian
Apostolic Church’s Aram I thanked Francis for his clear condemnation
and recalled that “genocide” is a crime against humanity that requires
reparation.

The Armenian president, Sarkisian, praised Francis for “calling things
by their names.”

In the interview, he acknowledged the reparation issue, but said
“for our people, the primary issue is universal recognition of the
Armenian genocide, including recognition by Turkey.”

He dismissed Turkish calls for joint research into what transpired,
saying researchers and commissions have already come to the conclusion
and there is “no doubt at all that what happened was a genocide.”

The lead sponsor of a new U.S. congressional resolution recognizing the
genocide, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), said he hoped the pope’s words would
“inspire our president and Congress to demonstrate a like commitment
to speaking the truth about the Armenian genocide and to renounce
Turkey’s campaign of concealment and denial.”

The definition of genocide has long been contentious. The United
Nations in 1948 defined genocide as killing and other acts intended
to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, but many
dispute which mass killings should be called genocide and whether the
terms of the U.N. convention on genocide can be applied retroactively.

Reaction to the pope’s declaration on the streets in Istanbul was
mixed.

“I’m glad he said it,” said Aysun Vahic Olger. “When you look at
history, there’s proof of it.”

However, Mucahit Yucedal, 25, said he felt genocide is a “serious
allegation.”

“I don’t support the word genocide being used by a great religious
figure who has many followers,” he said.

___

AP writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Desmond Butler and Ayse Wieting
in Istanbul contributed to this report.

POPE’S ‘GENOCIDE’ STATEMENT IS BOTH TOO EARLY AND TOO LATE

Chicago Tribune
April 14 2015

Bloomberg

The following editorial appears on Bloomberg View:

Sometimes it’s necessary to state the obvious, and sometimes it isn’t.

So which was it Sunday when Pope Francis described the Ottoman Empire’s
1915 slaughter of more than a million ethnic Armenians as genocide?

In one sense, the recognition comes late: This month marks the
100th anniversary of the Ottoman leadership’s systematic campaign
to exterminate or expel the entire Armenian population from Eastern
Anatolia. (The “Young Turk” generals running the empire during World
War I saw these Christian citizens as a fifth column for the allied
armies that were dismembering it.) This was genocide, something Turkey
has to come to terms with. The Armenian atrocity helped to inspire
the creation of both the word and — in 1948 — the crime.

Yet Sunday’s remarks can also be viewed as spoken too soon. That’s
because Turks as a nation have only in recent years begun to recognize
the truth of what happened, or even had access to the historical
record. Until about 15 years ago, the subject was taboo for research
by Turkish historians; schoolchildren weren’t taught the history
of what Armenians call the “Great Catastrophe.” More than denial,
there was ignorance.

Since then, Turkey has come a long way. Turkish historians such as
Taner Akcam have given unsparing accounts. Last year, in a courageous
first step, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first Turkish
leader to apologize to Armenians for what happened, although he
continues to oppose describing the slaughter as genocide, with its
association to Nazi Germany. Inevitably, the Turkish reaction to
Francis’s words was furious.

Ultimately, though, a word cannot make what happened a century ago
any better or worse. Far more important is what Turks and Armenians
do in the here and now.

It’s easy enough to say that the two nations should reconcile,
that the children of Armenians who fled into exile should be able to
return to Turkey if they wish, that they should be allowed to trade
and to restore their churches and cultural heritage. Yet the border
between Armenia and Turkey remains closed, despite a 2009 agreement
to open it. The deal, which would have set up a joint historical
committee, ultimately failed because it became linked to the question
of Armenia’s military occupation of part of neighboring Azerbaijan,
a close Turkish ally.

These are the unresolved issues that matter most today. Pope Francis
deserves some credit for publicly speaking the g- word (as Pope John
Paul II deserved credit for writing it 16 years ago), and for combining
his condemnation of the Ottoman atrocity with other genocides,
including by Christians. The true test of papal diplomacy, however, is
whether Francis can help revive the abandoned reconciliation process,
appeal to Erdogan’s desire to lead in the region, and bring Turks
and Armenians together again after a century of division.

ACTIVISTS IN GYUMRI TO HAND OVER ‘PRESENT’ TO RUSSIAN PROSECUTOR GENERAL

12:35 | April 15,2015 | Politics

A group of citizens of Armenian’s second largest city of Gyumri are
going to stage a protest action outside the outside the Russian
consulate in the city, demanding handover of Valery Permyakov, the
Russian soldier accused of killing a seven-member family in Gyumri, to
Armenian law enforcement authorities. During the protest, the group
will hand over consulate representatives a ‘present’ for Russian
Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika.

The group has left a post on their Facebook account which reads in part,

“Mr Chaika,

“Please accept this gift as a token of friendship between the two
countries, fill your inactivity or respond to the letter of your
Armenian counterpart. Any wrong step can strain the friendly relations
between Armenia and Russia.”

UN CHIEF DOESN’T SUPPORT POPE’S COMMENTS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Arutz Sheva, Israel
April 14 2015

Spokesman for Ban Ki-moon says he considers the slaughter of Armenians
“atrocity crimes”.

By Ben Ariel

A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday said Ban
considers the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks 100 years ago
“atrocity crimes” but is not supporting Pope Francis’ description of
the killings as “the first genocide of the 20th century”.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric was quoted by The Associated Press (AP)
as telling reporters that Ban took note of the pope’s comments and is
fully aware of “the sensitivities related to the characterization of
what happened” in 1915 and the April 24 commemoration of the 100th
anniversary of “the tragic events” by Armenia and others around
the world.

He added that the secretary-general firmly believes that the
commemoration and continuing cooperation between Armenians and Turks
“with a view to establishing the facts about what happened should
strengthen our collective determination to prevent similar atrocity
crimes from ever happening in the future.”

Dujarric said in response to a question that Ban did not envision an
international commission to examine the facts, saying, “There’ve been
discussions with the countries concerned, and communities concerned
and I think it’s important that those discussions continue.”

He sidestepped several questions on whether the secretary-general
agreed with the pope’s characterization, and whether Francis was
right to raise the issue, according to AP.

“The UN has sought to strengthen the capacity of the international
community to prevent such atrocity crimes from ever occurring,”
Dujarric said.

In his comments, the Pope had named the Armenian genocide, the
Holocaust and Stalinism as the three greatest human tragedies to
occur during the last century.

“In the past century, our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies,” Francis stated, at the beginning of a
Mass in the Armenian Catholic rite held at the Vatican.

“The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of
the 20th century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, in
comments he would have been aware would not go down well in Turkey,
where authorities deny the scale of the massacre which took place
between 1915-1917.

But the Pope called categorically for an end to such denial.

“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” he said.

Turkey was infuriated by the comments, summoning the Vatican’s
ambassador to Ankara to express its “disappointment” and saying the
Pope’s speech had caused “a problem of trust” between the two states.

POPE FRANCIS HOLDS SERVICE FOR ARMENIANS WHO DIED IN 1915

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
April 12 2015

12 April 2015 11:25 (Last updated 12 April 2015 22:34)

One-and-a-half hour service held at St. Peter Basilica in Vatican.

VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis has held a service in Vatican City for Armenians who
lost their lives in the 1915 incidents.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan; Catholicos Karekin II, the current
Catholicos of All Armenians and the supreme head of the Armenian
Apostolic Church, and Aram I Keshishian, the head of the Catholicosate
of the Great House of Cilicia, also attended the rite.

Quoting a declaration signed by Pope John Paul II and Kerekin II in
2001, the Pope said at the St. Peter Basilica: “In the past century,
our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented
tragedies.”

“The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the
twentieth century, struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian
nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans
and Greeks and, more recently, there have been other mass killings,
like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.”

Pope Francis added: “We have not yet learned that war is madness …

senseless slaughter.”

‘Rest in peace’

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences for the
first time in 2014 to all Ottoman citizens who lost their lives in
the events of 1915.

“Armenians who lost their lives in the events in the early twentieth
century rest in peace, and we convey our condolences to their
grandchildren,” Erdogan said.

The 1915 events took place during World War I when a portion of
the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with the
invading Russians and revolted.

The Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following
the revolts and there were some Armenian casualties during the
relocation process.

‘Great tragedy’

Armenia has demanded an apology and compensation, while Turkey has
officially refuted Armenian allegations over the incidents saying that,
although Armenians died during the relocations, many Turks also lost
their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian gangs in Anatolia.

The Turkish government has repeatedly called on historians to study
Ottoman archives pertaining to the era in order to uncover what
actually happened between the Ottoman government and its Armenian
citizens.

The debate on “genocide” and the differing opinions between the
present day Turkish government and the Armenian diaspora, along with
the current administration in Yerevan, still generates political
tension between Turks and Armenians.

Turkey’s official position against allegations of “genocide” is that
it acknowledges the past experiences were a great tragedy and that both
parties suffered heavy casualties, including hundreds of Muslim Turks.

Turkey agrees that there were certainly Armenian casualties during
World War I, but that it is impossible to define these incidents as
“genocide”.

GENOCIDE DE 1915 : PROGRAMME DES COMMEMORATIONS EN TURQUIE

Publie le : 14-04-2015

Info Collectif VAN – – >. Nota CVAN
: Le Collectif VAN est honore d’avoir ete sollicite pour soutenir
officiellement ses partenaires turcs et kurdes de l’IHD lors des
commemorations qui se tiendront le 24 avril 2015 a l’occasion
du Centenaire du genocide armenien a Istanbul. Notre association
soutient egalement l’EGAM, l’UGAB et DurDe qui mèneront a Istanbul,
pour la 3e annee consecutive, une delegation antiraciste europeenne
du 21 au 25 avril, et qui ont lance une petition (voir plus bas). Le
Collectif VAN vous propose la traduction d’un article en anglais de
Mehmet Boran publie sur le site d’Agos le 10 avril 2015.

Agos

Annonce du programme des commemorations d’Istanbul et Diyarbakir

Mehmet Boran 10/04/2015 17:20 NOUVELLES

L’Initiative >
a annonce son programme des commemorations du genocide, pour Istanbul
et Diyarbakýr.

L’initiative – reunissant Anadolu Kultur et Araþtýrma
Derneði/Association de la Culture et de la Recherche anatoliennes
(AKA-DER), l’Association de Defense des Droits de l’Homme et la
Commission anti-racisme et anti-discrimination, Nor Zartonk, la
Plate-forme Turabdin : la Plate-forme des Assyriens de Turquie,
Yuzleþme Platformu (la Plate-forme de confrontation au passe) et la
Fondation de la recherche politique, sociale et economique Zan, et
soutenue par l’Institut Gomidas base a Londres, l’Armenian Council
of Europe et le Collectif VAN de Paris – a tenu une conference de
presse concernant les evenements des commemorations qui auront lieu
le 24 avril.

Eren Keskin, la directrice de la branche d’Istanbul de l’Association
de Defense des Droits de l’Homme (IHD) a lu le communique de presse au
nom de l’initiative, et a declare que la lutte pour la reconnaissance
du genocide et contre le negationnisme ne finirait ni le 24 avril 2015
ni le 31 decembre 2015. Keskin a ajoute :

WASHINGTON APPELLE A RECONNAÃŽTRE LE MASSACRE ARMENIEN, SANS LE MOT GENOCIDE

USA-Armenie-Turquie-Vatican-histoire-politique-diplomatie

Washington, 14 avr 2015 (AFP) – Les Etats-Unis ont appele mardi a une
“pleine et franche” reconnaissance des faits concernant le massacre
d’Armeniens pendant la Première guerre mondiale mais sans utiliser
le mot “genocide”, repris dimanche par le pape.

La Turquie nie categoriquement que l’Empire ottoman ait organise le
massacre systematique de sa population armenienne pendant la Première
guerre mondiale et recuse le terme de “genocide” repris par l’Armenie,
de nombreux historiens et une vingtaine de pays dont la France,
l’Italie et la Russie.

Le president islamo-conservateur turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan a fermement
denonce mardi les propos du pape Francois, evoquant des “delires”.

Ankara avait violemment reagi après les declarations du pape, rappelant
son ambassadeur au Vatican.

“Le president (americain) et d’autres hauts responsables de
l’administration ont souvent reconnu comme un fait historique, et l’ont
deplore, que 1,5 million d’Armeniens aient ete massacres ou conduits a
la mort a la fin de l’Empire ottoman”, a affirme mardi Marie Harf, une
porte-parole du departement d’Etat, lors du point de presse quotidien.

“Une pleine, franche et juste reconnaissance de ces faits est dans
notre interet, y compris celui de la Turquie, de l’Armenie, et de
l’Amerique”, a-t-elle ajoute.

“Les pays sont plus forts et progressent quand ils reconnaissent et
tiennent compte des elements douloureux de leur passe”, a estime la
representante de la diplomatie americaine.

De tels changements sont “essentiels pour construire un avenir
different, plus tolerant”, a note Mme Harf, qui a cependant refuse
d’utiliser le terme de “genocide”.

Barack Obama, alors senateur, avait pourtant utilise ce mot lors
de sa campagne presidentielle en 2008, quand il avait promis de
“reconnaître le genocide armenien”.

Mme Harf a refuse de s’exprimer sur la promesse de M. Obama en 2008
et a demande aux journalistes de s’adresser a la Maison Blanche.

Les Armeniens estiment que 1,5 million des leurs ont ete tues de
manière systematique a la fin de l’Empire ottoman par l’armee dans
le but d’eradiquer les Armeniens d’Anatolie, une region situee dans
l’est de la Turquie actuelle.

La Turquie affirme pour sa part qu’il s’agissait d’une guerre civile,
doublee d’une famine, dans laquelle 300 a 500.000 Armeniens et autant
de Turcs ont trouve la mort, au moment où les forces ottomanes et
l’empire russe se disputaient le contrôle de l’Anatolie.

mercredi 15 avril 2015, Stephane (c)armenews.com

GENOCIDE OF A NATION

The Sunday Times (London)
April 12, 2015 Sunday

Dominic Lawson

GREAT CATASTROPHE
Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide by THOMAS DE WAAL OUP
£20/ebook £19.99 pp312

THEY CAN LIVE IN THE DESERT BUT NOWHERE ELSE A History of the Armenian
Genocide by RONALD GRIGOR SUNY Princeton £24.95 ebook £24.95 pp526

Sometimes it is not the images of genocide that chill the blood, but
the evidence of the perpetrators’ ordinary courtesies as they embark on
mass murder. In Thomas de Waal’s Great Catastrophe, there is a copy of
a handwritten letter sent by Talat Pasha, one of the three leaders of
the so-called “Young Turks” government, gracefully accepting a dinner
invitation that evening from the US Ambassador to Constantinople and
offering compliments to “Madame Morgenthau”. The date of the letter
(and the dinner)is April 24, 1915: the very day on which Talat’s
“final solution to the Armenian problem” went into action, with the
rounding up of Armenian civic and intellectual leaders, followed by
their murder.

The letter comes from the Henry Morgenthau archive, as does a
subsequent account of the response by Talat in August 2015, when the
US envoy called on him to protest at the programme of deportation and
murder of the Armenian population: “‘It is no use for you to argue,’
Talat answered. ‘We have already disposed of three-quarters of the
Armenians; there are none at all left in Bitlis, Van and Erzerum. The
hatred between the Turks and the Armenians is now so intense that
we have got to finish with them. If we don’t, they will plan their
revenge.'”

De Waal’s book, which is largely devoted to the aftermath of
the genocide and the attempts at some sort of resolution of the
outstanding moral debt (unacknowledged by any subsequent Turkish
government), provides details of the futile acts of revenge in the
1970s by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia
(Asala), a tiny Beirut-based group. Asala assassinated a handful of
blameless Turkish diplomats – with the result that Ronald Reagan,
Enhanced Coverage LinkingRonald Reagan, -Search using:News, Most
Recent 60 DaysBiographies Plus NewsFind An Executivedespite his long
acquaintance with the Armenian diaspora in California, abandoned his
earlier commitment to recognise the Armenian claim that they had been
victims of genocide.

He was just one of a number of American presidents (Barack Obama is
only the most recent) who solicited the Armenian-American vote with
such a promise, but then avoided all mention of the G-word once in
office and having been apprised by their generals how vital it was
to keep Turkey’s goodwill as a strategic ally.

In truth, the Armenians have always been the victims of bigpower
politics. Ronald Suny’s They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else
puts the extermination of approximately 1.5m souls 100 years ago in
exactly this context, but with a powerful personal introduction: “By
the end of the war, 90% of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were
gone, a culture and a civilisation wiped out never to return. Those
who observed the killings, as well as the Allied powers engaged in
a war against the Ottomans, repeatedly claimed that they had never
witnessed anything like it. The word for what happened had not
yet been invented. There was no concept to mark the state-targeted
killing of a designated ethnoreligious people. At the time those who
needed a word borrowed from the Bible and called it ‘holocaust’. My
great-grandparents were among the victims.”

Despite this familial link, Suny is admirably dispassionate
in explaining the particular circumstances that led the Ottoman
government to embark on a policy of mass extermination – a mixture of
outright slaughter of males and death marches of women and children
into the desert. The Ottomans had suffered catastrophic defeat in the
Balkan wars of 1912-13, with the result that millions of their Muslim
compatriots had been displaced and fled eastwards. The “Young Turks”
conceived of the Anatolian provinces as a new “homeland” – so it was
necessary, in effect, to empty of Armenians the historic homeland of
what was once an Armenian nation.

The other cause was their series of defeats at the hands of the vast
tsarist army during the First World War. Not only was this a further
shattering of the Ottoman Empire, but the Armenians were believed to
be sympathetic to their Christian co-religionists. In fact it was
remarkable how loyal Armenians were to their Ottoman rulers, even
though they had been the victims of a series of massacres in the 1890s
and in 1909. Like the Jews of Central Europe, the Christian Armenians
had prospered in trade and finance: this had aroused resentment among
the much larger Muslim population. Germany, in fact, is linked to
both genocides: the “Young Turks” were in alliance with Berlin while
they carried out their holocaust of the Armenians.

German diplomats, horrified at what they were witnessing, were told
to keep quiet by their government: and after the collapse of the
Ottoman regime, the main perpetrators of the genocide (“The Three
Pashas”) were allowed to settle in peaceful retirement in Germany. It
was in Berlin on March 15, 1921 that Talat was shot dead by Soghoman
Tehlirian, a 23- year-old Armenian almost deranged with grief at what
he had witnessed a few years earlier. The German jury, who had known
little of what had happened, were so affected by the eyewitnesses’
accounts brought by the defence, that they acquitted Tehlirian after
just one hour of deliberation.

Yet, as Suny points out, one of the Germans, Max von Scheubner-Richter
(who as vice-consul in Erzerum had sent reports to Berlin highly
critical of what he termed the “annihilation” of the Armenians) later
became a leading member of the Nazi party: “[He] became famous, not
for his resistance to Ottoman atrocities, but when in 1923 he marched
arm-in-arm with Adolf Hitler during the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

Scheubner-Richter was shot in the lung and killed immediately; as he
fell, he pulled Hitler down with him, dislocating Hitler’s shoulder.

He probably saved the future dictator’s life when the second volley
was fired.”

So, from witnessing the first genocide of the 20th century to
accidentally enabling the second: what an astonishing footnote to
the history of mass murder.

Available at the Bookshop price of £18 (de Waal) and £21.95
(inc p&p) and £19.99 and £24.95 (ebooks) on 0845 271 2135 and at
. Bookshop price of £18 (de Waal)
and £21.95 (inc p&p) and £19.99 and £24.95 (ebooks) on 0845 271 2135
and at Death walk During the First
World War, caught between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, Armenia was
regarded with suspicion by the government in Istanbul. In April 1915,
Armenian intellectuals were arrested, then able-bodied men were killed
while women, children and the infirm were forced on death marches
to the Syrian desert. The number killed has been put at between 1m
and 1.5m.

was regarded with suspicion by the government in Istanbul. In April
1915, Armenian intellectuals were arrested, then able-bodied men
were killed while women, children and the infirm were forced on
death marches to the Syrian desert. The number killed has been put
at between 1m and 1.5m.

GRAPHIC: Killing millions Above, ‘John Bull’s dilemma’, an 1895
satiricalBRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY, COLLECTION OF THE RUSSIAN STATE
ARCHIVEcomment on the mass slaughter of Armenians

ERDOGAN CONDEMNS POPE FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMENT

The Times of Israel
April 14 2015

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expresses anger over the pope’s
use of the word genocide to describe the mass killings of Armenians
in World War I, saying such talk was nonsense and the pontiff should
not repeat such a mistake again.

“If politicians and religious leaders do the job of historians then
we will not get to the truth and only end with nonsense,” Erdogan says
in a speech in Ankara in his first reaction to the pope’s comments.

“Respected pope: I condemn this mistake and warn against making it
again,” he says to applause from an audience of businessmen.

Turkey has vehemently rejected the use of the term genocide to describe
the Ottoman era killings and is keeping to its line during the current
100th anniversary of the tragedy.

— AFP