2976) Open Letter to Mr. Stephen Kinzer by Sukru Aya

Dear Sir,

In reference to your article of October 15th, in “The Boston Globe” , I would like to comment only on below lines of your article, based on presumptions or distortions. I am not objecting to your remarks for the present and probable future, but I do resent your below words and ask you to supply documentary evidence, to belie the authentic monumental references I am quoting, to refresh or enlighten your knowledge.. .


[This breakthrough could also be said to have taken 16 years, the length of time the Turkey-Armenia border has been shut, or 94 years, the time that has passed since Ottoman Turkish forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Armenians in what is now eastern Turkey.

In the end, pragmatism prevailed over emotion. Armenia is a poor, landlocked country that desperately needs an outlet to the world. Turkey is a booming regional power, but suffers from its refusal to acknowledge the massacres of 1915. With this accord, each side helps solve the other’s problem. The border is to be reopened and diplomatic relations restored, giving Armenia a chance to rejoin the world. Questions about what happened in 1915 – was it genocide? – will be submitted to historians for “impartial scientific examination.’’ ]

Dear Sir, a person of your reputation, for knowledge and reliance, should have had read deeper in history, to learn what it is behind the stage. In doing so, I would have expected you to read at least available official U.S. Senate Records and archives. You may find over 2000 verbatim excerpts from anti-Turkish or neutral sources (avoiding and denialist (?) prominent historians or Turkish documents) in my book which has been on the free E book library of the blog site of Turkish Armenians, where you can find as well some 140 authentic books and references, some 60.000 pages of authentic articles and news. It may take you Sir some 3-4 years to do nothing but read what it has been brought into light in this truth defending Armenian blog site since 2005. If you have not heard about it or my book, which is the result of some 30.000 pages of scanning and four years compilation, then Sir, it is your negligence or shaky concept of “procuring knowledge”., from shallow swamps!

Genocide Of Truth

Sir, any scholar, journalist, historian, legal or historic consultant and alike, does not have the freedom of being selective in their knowledge sources. It is your responsibility to find the other leads and to look in the back of the counterfeit banknote. Accordingly, it should be your moral obligation to explain the dependability of your statement, versus below excerpt from US National Archive document no 184.021/175, which you can also view at the very bottom of my below article, in the Annex document on atrocities:

Near East Report

…strongest of all the material evidence on the ground itself have convinced us of the general truth of the facts, first that Armenians massacred Mussulmans on a large scale with many refinements of cruelty and second that Armenians are responsible for the most of destruction done to towns and villages.

Separately you may please view below link for the eyewitness report of a Dutch correspondent:

Austrian Eyewitness

You are also kindly requested to take the trouble and read the RELIEF REPORT, resolved unanimously by the US Congress-Senate on 22.4.1922 in which they make no mention of “any Turkish refined cruelties, but on the contrary almost thanks for the special care to the orphans” and clearly indicates the number of total living persons as 1.414.000 on 31.12.1921. (One Million in Russia, 300.000 in Syria, 114.000 in Turkey)!. We have too many reliable references showing the number of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on 1.03.1914 as 1.280.000 or 1.3 million, or with maximal estimates at 1.5 million. Well, then I think it is either your or U.S. Congress liability to tell the average intelligent person, how you can kill 1.5 million or several hundred thousand persons by a distortion-inversion invented after 1965, and still have a balance of 1.414.000 living Armenians. Who is lying Sir? The U.S. Congress-Senate with a report signed also by Morgenthau and General Harbord and both Armenians Patriarchs! The Armenian diaspora - treasure or skull - hunters, who seem to have cheated you so easily. Please also clarify, how any type of commission can refute American-British-Armenian or Dutch-Swedish documents, engraved in history in those days, by respective eyewitnesses. You should be able to judge that this is not a "justified dispute between decent Armenians and Turks", but it is a serious conflict of interest of circulating large amounts of cash, constantly lubricated by Turkish antagonism, hatred and revenge, based on "fabrications to swindle good hearted, easy believers"!

Sincerely,

Sukru Server Aya, (Researcher) , Istanbul Oct.19th, 2009

---

Dear All,

Stephen Kinzer is at it again. Something must have gone sour in his dealings with Turkey and behind the scene maneuvers with others that has forced him to write the article which most Turks will abhore. I don't see how anyone can see it as positive? After being very careful as to what he has written since his tenure in Istanbul as the NY Times Bureau Chief for four years in late 1990s and early 2000s, he has written the worst article on Turkey, ignoring years of new discoveries on the Armenian issue. If he had scanned the pages or even read a review of Sukru Aya's truthful book "The Genocide of Truth", he would not have bluntly stated that the "Ottoman Turkish Forces" slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Armenians in what is now eastern Turkey." Not the Ottomans, not the Turks but the Turkish forces who protected the Armenians during the re-location. I wonder if Kinzer considers the Kurds who did most of the killing other than those who died of sicknesses, as part of the Turkish forces?

First, Kinzer has picked the most anti-Turkish newspaper in the US to publish his article, the Boston Globe, which lost its mission and vision on foreign affairs after it was acquired by the NY Times. Articles by the Morgenthau's and other supporters of the Armenian cause never ceased to be published which I do not need go into (1).

Kinzer states that the opposition by the Diaspora Armenians to the Protocols is most bizarre neglecting the unreliability of the diaspora which has through different means has convinced 20 or so countries and 40 or so States pass resolution on the mythical genocide through their fabrications, distortions and out right lies.

Kinzer refers to the recent failed rebellion by Armenians in the diaspora but does not mention the actual rebellion of Armenians and massacre of Turks and moslems in eastern Turkey dating back to the 1860s onward which resulted in the re-location and the deaths. I wonder if Kinzer ever read the book on Van rebellion and the killing of over 30,000 Turks in Van.

Turkey has acknowledged the death of not only the Armenians but also Turks as well during the war years and the Armenian revolt which Kinzer forgets to mention. But the death of Armenians can not be labeled as genocide and the massacre of Turks by Armenians can not be ignored. It is sad to see Kinzer coming out with such a distorted article and Boston Globe not even mentioning his book on Turkey, "Star and Crescent." A review of that book is given below for those interested in reading. Time does not permit to expand on this commentary but I hope others will and perhaps ATAA consider recalling the ward that they bestowed on him perhaps 10 years ago.

Yuksel Oktay
Seattle, Washington
18 October 2009

---

A new role for Turkey

The Boston Globe | A new role for Turkey By Stephen Kinzer
October 15, 2009

REACHING LAST weekend’s diplomatic breakthrough between Turkey and Armenia was not easy. It took six weeks of secret talks in Switzerland, seven last-minute phone calls from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the two countries’ foreign ministers, and a wild ride in a Zurich police car, lights flashing and siren shrieking, for a Turkish diplomat carrying a revised draft of the accord.

This breakthrough could also be said to have taken 16 years, the length of time the Turkey-Armenia border has been shut, or 94 years, the time that has passed since Ottoman Turkish forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Armenians in what is now eastern Turkey.

In the end, pragmatism prevailed over emotion. Armenia is a poor, landlocked country that desperately needs an outlet to the world. Turkey is a booming regional power, but suffers from its refusal to acknowledge the massacres of 1915. With this accord, each side helps solve the other’s problem. The border is to be reopened and diplomatic relations restored, giving Armenia a chance to rejoin the world. Questions about what happened in 1915 – was it genocide? – will be submitted to historians for “impartial scientific examination.’’

The most bizarre aspect of this process was the effort by Armenians in France and the United States to derail it. Earlier this month in Paris, President Serge Sarkisian of Armenia was met by shouts of “Traitor!’’ and had to be protected by riot police. The potent Armenian-American lobby also rallied against the accord.

If President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran proposed that impartial historians examine the question of whether the Holocaust actually happened, most Jews would presumably accept happily. The failed rebellion by Armenians in the diaspora suggests that some are trapped by the past; their cousins back home, meanwhile, seek a better future.

“There is no alternative to the establishment of relations with Turkey without any precondition,’’ Sarkisian said as the new accord was signed. “It is the dictate of the time.’’

Both parliaments must ratify the accord. There will be disagreements over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, which Armenia occupies but which the rest of the world considers part of Azerbaijan, Turkey’s ally. Nonetheless, both countries seem resolved to thaw this long-frozen conflict. They will probably do whatever necessary to overcome remaining obstacles.

The accord will allow trade between the two countries to resume. It will also make it easier for Armenians to visit magnificent monuments from their past that lie within modern-day Turkey. Beyond that, it has far-reaching geopolitical importance.

For nearly all of its 86 years as a state, Turkey has kept a low profile in the world. Those days are over. Now Turkey is reaching for a highly ambitious regional role as a conciliator and peacemaker.

When Turkish officials land in bitterly divided countries like Lebanon or Afghanistan or Pakistan, every faction is eager to talk to them. No country’s diplomats are as welcome in both Tehran and Jerusalem, Moscow and Tblisi, Damascus and Cairo. As a Muslim country intimately familiar with the region around it, Turkey can go places, engage partners, and make deals that the United States cannot.

This new Turkish role holds tantalizing potential. Before Turkey can play it fully, though, it must put its own house in order. That is one reason its leaders were so eager to resolve their country’s dispute with Armenia.

Turkey has one remaining international problem to resolve: Cyprus. Then it must solidify its democracy at home. That means lifting restrictions on free speech and fully respecting minority rights not just those of Kurds, whose culture has been brutalized by decades of repression, but also those of Christians, non-mainstream Muslims, and unbelievers.

Under other circumstances, Egypt, Pakistan, or Iran might have emerged to lead the Islamic world. Their societies, however, are weak, fragmented, and decomposing. Indonesia is a more promising candidate, but it has no historic tradition of leadership and is far from the center of Muslim crises. That leaves Turkey. It is trying to seize this role. Making peace with Armenia was an important step. More are likely to come soon.

Stephen Kinzer is the author of “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq.’’

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.