LAWMAKERS TO TAKE WITNESS OF ARMENIAN ATROCITIES TO US
Ercan Yavuz
Muzaffer Gulyurt
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 7 2007
Turkish parliamentarians who will visit the United States later this
month to lobby against the passage of an Armenian genocide resolution
have decided to include in the delegation a lawmaker whose father
survived inter-communal fighting between Turks and Armenians and
atrocities committed by Armenians in eastern Anatolia during World
War I.
A resolution was recently introduced in the US House of Representatives
urging the US administration to recognize an alleged genocide of
Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The sponsors of the
resolution announced the resolution at a press conference attended
by two Armenian survivors of the episode.
Turkey denies Armenian allegations of genocide and says the killings
were the result of an inter-communal fight that killed Turks as
well as Armenians. Clashes ensued as Armenians of eastern Anatolia,
in collaboration with the invading Russian army, attacked Turks in
a revolt aimed at creating an independent Armenian state in the region.
Passage of the resolution is expected to strain Turkish-US relations,
and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, currently on a visit to Washington,
is urging US authorities to exert efforts to prevent passage of
the resolution.
The Turkish parliamentary delegation, led by Parliament’s Foreign
Affairs Commission Chairman Mehmet Dulger, will visit the United States
on Feb. 11, the first in a series of planned trips to Washington until
April. Dulger and Parliament Speaker Bulent Arýnc insisted that the
delegation should include Muzaffer Gulyurt, a ruling Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) deputy from the eastern province of
Erzurum because he could give an account of what happened in the
World War I years in Anatolia in talks with US congressmen.
A grim story Gulyurt, in an interview with Today’s Zaman, said his
father had gone through the hardship that almost all families in
Erzurum had gone through during the years of World War I. His father’s
story included grim details such as an wound that saved him from a
painful death in a house set ablaze by Armenian gangs.
His father, who was 15 when the Russians began invading Erzurum, told
him that the invasion led to waves of migration from the province and
that his family, too, was among those who were trying to flee. The
rest of his story continues: "As my family was preparing to set off
for Tokat on oxcarts, the Russians launched a siege. They could not
move. My father was among them. As whoever was capable of using a
weapon was recruited to the army, the remaining population of Erzurum
consisted of only the elderly, children and women. When the Russian
invasion first started, my father went out for scouting purposes. But
when an Ottoman arsenal was destroyed,my father was injured with
a shrapnel wound to the head. Some women took him inside a house
and hid him. As he was injured, he was not recruited as a soldier,
so he was the only young person in the neighborhood.
"After the Russians left the region following the Bolshevik revolution,
the city was dominated by Armenian gangs. They started to persecute
Turkish people. My father had to work under their command for two more
years. Since my father was a high school graduate, they made him a
chief in the camp of Turkish prisoners. With the advance of Turkish
troops toward the city, the Armenians started to incinerate Turkish
prisoners, who were forced to work in quarries or in digging shelters,
from early March to March 12. On that day, my father could not go to
work since he contracted tetanus due to a nail cut on his foot. On
March 12, Turkish prisoners were taken to a house in Yanýkdere,
Erzurum, and the house was set ablaze by Armenians, incinerating them
alive. My father would say, ‘If I had not been hurt by a nail, I would
have been one of those incinerated.’" Gulyurt recalled that Turks and
Armenians were living in peace until the Russian invasion and added:
"In the US, I will state that it was the Turks who were massacred in
reality. There is no need to generate hatred and animosity out of the
incidents of the past. Using the evidence, historians can decide the
ultimate truth in such issues. I will take the documents and photos
I have to the US."
The parliamentary delegation includes Yaþar Yakýþ, head of Parliament’s
EU Harmonization Commission and Foreign Affairs Commission members
Murat Mercan, Ali Rýza Alaboyun, Onur Oymen and Gulsun Bilgehan Toker
as well as Gulyurt.
A second delegation will depart after Feb. 24 and is expected to
include Þaban Diþli, one of the AK Party’s experts on foreign policy,
as well as Vahit Erdem, Necdet Budak, and Republican People’s Party
(CHP) members Ýnal Batu and Yakup Kepenek. The third delegation
will consist of Egemen Baðýþ, who has close contacts with the US,
Reha Denemec, CHP’s Zeynep Damla Gurel and Þukru Elekda.
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