1619) Bodrum Symposium 2007 :Turks, Armenians & Truth in History

About “BODRUM” PANEL, Apr.14, 2007 “Tarihte Turkler Ermeniler ve Gercekler – 2”

This panel, was a continuation of the larger symposium of Dec.5, 2005, and was again very well organized by cooperation of Marmara Egitim Vakfi – Bodrum Municipality – Bodrum Chamber of Commerce, under the leadership of kaymakam Abdullah Kalkan, ex beuty queen Gunseli Basar, starting at 10 a.m. and closing at 3.30 p.m. with a half hours coffee break, in the conference room of Marmara Koleji. . .

First speaker Prof. Yusuf Halacoglu, made a presentation showing some documents signed by Bogos Nubar, confirming that the (Dashnak) Armenians were “belligerents de facto” and that in 1918, 390.000 were alive whilst the number of relocated persons was 600 to 700.000. Hence, there is no confirmation in any Armenian document that 1.5 million died, who did not even exist. Halacoglu said that they have records of some 450.000 relocated by names, and that 518.000 were killed or died in the same area for same reasons. Halacoglu explained that Ara Sarafian changed his mind lately, to come and evidence the opening of a new mass grave and that he hoped that a Swedish professor would show up since he had accepted all their conditions. Halacoglu explained that he even offered to cover the cost for “classification of Boston Dashnak archives” (or Yerevan) which are both closed.

Second speaker Prof. Nursen Mazici, explained the close relationship between ASALA, PKK, Cypriot Greeks and explained the involvement of the missionaries in the old days as well as their present activities spread out over Turkey. She explained that Turkey cannot possibly accept the three main conditions put forward, viz. that (1) Turkey accepts the genocide accusation, (2) that we come to terms with PKK and (3) that we surrender Cyprus to Greeks. Mazici explained that another condition, Art. 301 of the penal law, was not related to any of these. She explained that other than the previous written agreements on Cyprus, the island is of “key strategic” importance for Turkey. Likewise on PKK, who caused some 30,000 deaths and are still active with modern weaponry and bombs obtained easily in Iraq, Turkey cannot let her unified country chopped up in districts by EU. Mazici also explained the “flip-flop” activities of the Jewish lobbies primarily for their own interests.

Third speaker Sukru S. Aya, explained that he took interest in the matter, because of contradicting and conflicting information given by so called scholars, and that he found many details to be totally wrong and still copied from one another. Aya explained that the relations between Dashnaks and CUP were extremely amicable, that they had offered Autonomy in August 1914 against their siding with Turks in the coming war, but that the Dashnaks in Tiblisi rejected the offer in their craze of war for looting, taking the advice of Britain and the higher bid of the Russian Tsar to give them two more Russian provinces, on top of the Six provinces offered by the Ottomans. A quick chronological count was made to prove that there was no reason, time, means, end benefits to plan any annihilation but that the war zones had to be evacuated immediately as a military necessity of both German and Turkish army commanders. In reply to a question, Aya explained the paradoxical dedication of the Dashnaks first to Tsarist Russia, France and Britain, later to Soviet Russia becoming their satellite state. But during WWII, some Armenians from Turkey and Lebanon joined Hitler’s army, and their Armenian 812 Battalion which started with 8,000 later increased to over 20,000 with addition of Russian Armenians who fell prisoner to Germans. Aya explained the role of the Nazi Armenian troops in rounding up Jews, when the Turkish ambassador and Consuls in France, saved close to 20,000 Jews related in one way or another with Turkey, giving them Turkish I.D. apers. These were finally transported in 1943 by trains in railway cars sent from Turkey. The incident was also confirmed in the Washington Post of June 17, 1943, but that these go unnoticed by the Jewish members of the US Congress and instead they speak of a sentence which Hitler never spoke, but which was used as another Andonian type fabrication, which converted Nazi Soldier Armenians, into “Russian Army Armenian prisoners” who found acceptance in large quotas into USA including General Dro-Antranik of the Nazi army.

Fourth speaker Prof. Norman Stone spoke in his broken Turkish and pointed out the frequent errors made by Turkish historians when speaking of Assyrians (Suryani) and Keldanis, both Christians in the South East of Anatolia, one of them faithful to the Ottomans, the other collaborating with British and Arabs against Ottomans.

Last speaker Asst. Prof. Orhan Cekic, made a presentation with photos, showing the devastation of the city Van as well as several massacres. Prof. Cekic showed samples of forged documents, similarities between the signature attributed to Talat Pasha and the Aleppo governor, who was not even there on indicated dates.

The panel audience was a few hundreds, with serious questions to the panelists, promptly replied. The panel will be continued next year.

Sukru Server Aya
Istanbul, 17.04.2007