FACT CHECK: Turkish Defense Minister Distorts History of What Biden Called Armenian 'Genocide'

In an article published by Real Clear Defense, Turkey’s top defense official Hulisi Akar argues that the mass killing and deportation of ethnic Armenians in the early 20th century Ottoman Empire was not an act of genocide.

Akar’s article was posted on April 21, three days before Armenian Remembrance Day was marked on April 24 and before Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to use the phrase “Armenian genocide” in an official statement.

“Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” Biden said.

According to Reuters, Biden told the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 23, that he “intends to recognize” the massacres of Ottoman Armenians as genocide in his Remembrance Day statement.

Turkey, officially a U.S. ally and member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, does not recognize the Armenian genocide, and Erdogan responded in a nationally broadcast TV speech on April 26, that Biden had taken a “wrong step,” and that his comments were “groundless and unfair.”

In the past, Erdogan has denounced the accusation of genocide during World War I as “slander” against his country.

[hesoyamhesoyam]

Referring to the Armenian Governments’ allegations about the events of 1915, I would like to bring to your attention the following:

Turks and Armenians lived together in peace and harmony throughout many centuries. Quite a number of Armenians had important positions in Ottoman administrations. At the end of 19th and at the beginning of 20th centuries, for 28 years the ministers in charge of the personal budget of the Sultan were Armenians. An Ottoman Foreign Minister was Armenian. There were Armenian members of Parliament, ambassadors and high-level officers.

During the First World War, responding to an appeal by Tsar Nikola II, approximately 150, 000 Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin joined the Russian forces invading Eastern parts of Turkey.

These Armenians, and local Armenian armed groups attacked not only supply roads and storage facilities of the Turkish forces, but Turkish towns and villages as well, killing a great number of civilians including women and children.

In 1915 Ottoman government, upon the demand of Commanders of the Turkish forces on the Eastern Front, decided to move Armenians living in combat zones to safe places of the Empire. This deportation had started after armed Armenian groups took over control of the city of Van.

A great number of Turks and Armenians had lost their lives during this period as a result of mutual killings and illnesses. There are various estimations of Armenian casualties. French writer Pierre Loti, in his letter to the French Foreign Minister, asserted that Armenian claims are grossly exaggerated.

French journalist and writer Jean Schlicklin in his book Angora published in 1922, reports that by the end of 1919, one hundred Turkish villages were burned and their inhabitants massacred by Armenians.

According to the official records of the Turkish authorities, around half a million Turks lost their lives in this period in the areas of confrontation.

During the First World War, these confrontations have been presented as Turkish atrocities by allied propaganda agencies, most particularly by the British Propaganda Ministry, Wellington House, [4] practically without any reference to Turkish victims. These wartime propaganda materials are still in use to justify Armenian claims of genocide.

Katchaznouni, the first Prime Minister of Armenia and the President of The Dashnak Party, in a speech delivered in April 1923 at the Congress of the Party in Bucharest, blamed his own party for wrongdoings during this period.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 sets forth the definition of genocide and specifies the legal authorities qualified to determine which acts could be construed as genocide.[6] The Armenian claims cannot be justified by the stipulations of this Convention and have not been accepted by a large part of the international community or relevant legal authorities.

British Foreign Office Minister Baroness Meta Ramsay of Cartvale addressing the House of Lords on 14 April 1999 said, “…in the absence of unequivocal evidence to show that the Ottoman administration took a specific decision and action to eliminate the Armenians under their control at the time, British governments have not recognised the events of 1915 and 1916 as "genocide."

69 American historians, including Professors Bernard Lewis, Justin McCarthy, Stanford Shaw and Dankwart Rustow published a statement in The New York Times and Washington Post on May 19, 1985, arguing that “…much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population, Christian and Muslim alike.”

On December 17, 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Switzerland violated the right to freedom of speech by convicting Doğu Perinçek, chairman of the Turkish Workers Party, for having publicly denied the existence of any genocide against the Armenian people. The Court pointed out that a consensus was difficult to establish in relation to matters which cannot be historically ascertained with absolute certainty, especially in view of the fact that genocide is a very specific and narrowly defined legal concept requiring a high threshold of proof.

[elinope]

Distorted history? Show me an example of historical documentation that isn't distorted. Words change meaning and context over time, distorting the meaning of those historical writings.

ALL history is distorted at best.

[cybrfriends]

God Bless President Joe Biden, God Bless America and its Democracy!
Finally leadership we can have hope and believe in!!