After a Century, Bankrupt Turkey Wasting Huge Sums to Deny the Armenian Genocide

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

The Turkish government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide is as futile
as a man who repeatedly hits his head against a wall, hoping the wall
would give way.

For more than a century, successive Turkish governments have done
everything in their power to cover up the heinous crime of the
Armenian Genocide committed by their predecessors. No Turkish leader
has had the courage and honesty to admit the truth. Instead, Turkey
has wasted huge sums of money to deny the undeniable. It has bribed
questionable scholars and crooked politicians around the world to
distort the historical facts. Ankara has published hundreds of
deceptive books and made several trashy movies to cover up its crimes.
Over several decades, Turkey has spent tens of millions of dollars to
hire American lobbying firms to pressure the U.S. Congress not to
acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. All of these efforts failed
miserably. The U.S. House of Representatives recognized the Armenian
Genocide in 1975, 1984 and 2019. The U.S. Senate unanimously
recognized it in 2019. Moreover, two U.S. Presidents acknowledged it:
Pres. Ronald Reagan in a Presidential Proclamation in 1981 and Pres.
Joe Biden in his commemorative statements on April 24, 2021 and 2022.
The most authoritative American acknowledgment of the Armenian
Genocide took place on May 28, 1951, when the U.S. government
submitted an official report to the World Court, stating that the
Armenian Genocide was one of the “outstanding examples of the crime of
genocide.”

Despite all Turkish pressures, threats and bribes, over 30 countries
have formally acknowledged the Armenian Genocide. This is in addition
to acknowledgments by the United Nations War Crimes Commission in
1948, the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities in 1985 and the European Parliament
repeatedly since 1987.

Most of these acknowledgments took place at a time when the Republic
of Armenia did not exist as an independent state. The Armenian
Diaspora, in a David vs. Goliath battle, was able to counter the
denials of the powerful Turkish government, supported by its NATO
allies and scores of Islamic states.

All of these denialist efforts are based on the simple misconception
that should the Turkish government acknowledge the Armenian Genocide,
it would then be obligated to pay restitution to surviving Armenians.
Regrettably, many Armenians have the same misconception. The fact is
that the Turkish government is liable to pay reparations and return
confiscated Armenian properties and territories, regardless of whether
Turkish leaders acknowledge their guilt or not. Political statements
by government leaders are of no value in a court of law. Courts deal
with facts and documents. No matter how many times Turkey denies the
genocide, the Republic of Armenia has the right to take its demands
for restitution and return of territories to the International Court
of Justice (World Court), where only governments have such
jurisdiction.

After an entire century of denial, the Turkish government announced
last week its latest desperate attempt to counter the facts of the
Armenian Genocide by forming the TEKAR Foundation (Turkish Armenian
Issue Research Foundation). This is a coalition of three Turkish
groups: Educational Friends Foundation, Baskent (Capital City)
Strategic Research Center, and Center for Countering Fanatic Armenian
Lies. The new Foundation held its inaugural assembly on June 25.

TEKAR plans to republish a Turkish denialist book written by Esat Uras
(1882-1957), titled: “The Armenians in history and the Armenian
question.” As a member of the Committee of Union and Progress (Young
Turks), Uras played a key role in planning and executing the Armenian
Genocide. His book is replete with gross misrepresentations.

The Turkish Foundation also stated that it will “print Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk’s views, thoughts and statements on Armenians, Armenian
activities and Armenian relations.” I hope the Foundation will not
forget to quote from Ataturk’s interview published by the Los Angeles
Examiner on August 1, 1926, in which he said: “These leftovers from
the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for
the lives of millions of our Christian subjects, who were ruthlessly
driven en masse from their homes and massacred…. They have hitherto
lived on plunder, robbery and bribery.”

The TEKAR Foundation has 23 members on its board of trustees. The
chairman of the board is Mehmet Arif Demirer, a chemical engineer, not
a historian! Incomprehensibly, the board is composed of six military
officers, three engineers, two economists, one gastronomist, one
student, and several others of miscellaneous backgrounds. It looks
like the real purpose of the TEKAR Foundation is to provide jobs to
Pres. Erdogan’s circle of friends. While it is a good thing that these
Turks want to study the Armenian Genocide, their intention is not
seeking the truth!

Turkish denialists have never understood that the more they deny the
Armenian Genocide and the longer they talk about it, the more the
world becomes aware of the Armenian Genocide. In other words, Turkey
foolishly keeps publicizing the Armenian Genocide to new generations
while trying to deny it.

The second thing that the Turkish leaders never understood is that the
sooner they acknowledge the crimes of their predecessors, the sooner
they will gain the respect of the international public opinion. When a
Turkish leader eventually acknowledges the truth, he will be praised
worldwide and may even be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. By
their denials, Turkish leaders are doing a major disservice to their
own reputations, not to mention the huge sums of money they are
wasting at a time when the Turkish economy is bankrupt!