574) Turkish Armenian Dialogue (!)

-Armenian – You must apologize
-Turkish – Why?
-Armenian A-Because you made genocide
-Turkish - When?
-Armenian - 90 years ago
-Turkish - You mean the 1st World War ?..
-Armenian -Yes
-Turkish -What happened ? What do you call ‘genocide’ for ?
-Armenian -You destroyed all Anatolian Armenians.
-Turkish - We didn’t destroy anyone. It was war , you declared fight against us, it was a struggle;we acheived, you couldn’t.
-Armenian-But you forced innocent people to a death-march.
-Turkish - Those local people were feeding guerillas,who declared fight against their state.
-Armenian-All of them can not be guilty, how can a kid or an old ill person be guilty about it and deserved to be punished.
-Turkish - They were not punished, they were relocated. Majority of them stayed alive. If they were forced to leave the country, through North-east, to the front lines, would it be better? But Russia did that for Caucasus Muslims, they were forced to go through front lines into Anatolia. Your people were relocated in places away from war. If they were not relocated there, their homelands were already a fight region, a fight region because it was under invasion of an enemy state which you supported. Local races were hostile to each other. If they were not relocated, the ones who stayed alive, could have died in the places they left.

-Armenian-I don’t care. You were the authority, you should have kept your territory in peace. We were minority and you were majority. So you had the responsibility to protect your citizens.

-Turkish - If you were the minority, how could you claim independence?

-Armenian -We were minority but we were not 1000 years ago. You came and killed us and became majority. Lands were our sacred lands.

-Turkish - It is very long ago, but it is a fact that nomad Turks were flowing from central Asia to Anatolia, due to population increase. They came here and established their lordship. I suppose they didn’t destroy anyone but only got the lordship from East Roman empire. The people, changed their citizenship only. They started to pay the tax to different people. They kept living and doing what they do before.

-Armenian -No no, you are Muslim we are Christian, you probably killed us.
-Turkish - ???
-Armenian - You can’t find even a word. Because you are guilty, like your grand father.
-Turkish - ???
-Armenian – Yes… yes… you are guilty and a bloody denier. There is no need for dialogue. Accept it or shut up!... There should be no relations between Turkey and Armenia because you killed my grandpa.

Emine DUZCAKIR
Letters for the Editor section
info@usak.org.uk
22 Apr 2006

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