ANKARA - Turkish History Institution Chairman Prof. Dr. Yusuf Halacoglu has said that Armenians' allegations on genocide were nothing but political propaganda, adding scientific facts refuted the allegations.
Holding a press conference to promote a book entitled ''Armenians: Exile and Migration'' of historians Hikmet Ozdemir, Kemal Cicek, Omer Turan and Ramazan Calik, Prof. Dr. Halacoglu said on Thursday, ''the book was prepared examining nearly 15 thousand documents in archives of the western countries. The study lasted for about one an half years. These documents in the book will completely refute allegations put forward by Armenians so far.''
''Under the light of data in western sources, Armenian population in 1914 was 1 million 400 thousand. Despite disease, losses stemming from wars and all other factors, Armenian population rose to 1 million 700 thousand in 1918. These figures unveil wrongfulness of allegations saying that 1.5 million Armenians were exposed to genocide,'' he stressed.
Prof. Dr. Halacoglu emphasized that those allegations would be discussed with Armenians in a scientific platform in Austrian capital Vienna in 2005 for the first time.
''A preparatory meeting will take place in Vienna on July 25, 2004 to this end. Actually, I do not know whether Armenians could dare to attend the meeting after all these data obtained from the western sources. We will attend the meeting with documents from archives of Russia, the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Iran besides Ottoman era archives. Participants will be obliged to show original documents. Our archives are open while Armenian archives are still closed. We will stipulate Armenians existence of original documents,'' he said.
Prof. Dr. Halacoglu added, ''efforts to refute baseless allegations of Armenians are as important as the Cyprus issue.''
Since 1965, the Armenians have been accusing the Turks of an alleged genocide. Armenian enmity against the Turks began with the voluntary Armenian troops in the Russian Army, and at last Armenian thuggery reached its peak in the beginning of the 20th century. Many Turkish people were killed by Armenian thuggery.
April 24, 1915 was the day in which the Ottoman Empire began to arrest the Armenian thuggery. On this date, the Armenian Committee centers were closed, their documents were confiscated, and the leaders were arrested. The Ottoman Empire tried to prevent the events by sending instructions to many cities. As a result of these instructions, 2 thousand 345 people were arrested. The Armenians exploits this date since the leaders of the revolutionists were arrested on the date.
The so-called Armenian genocide allegations caused assassinations of many Turkish officials. Between 1973 and 1985, Armenian terrorist organization of ASALA staged several act of terrorism against Turkish diplomats abroad. 34 people lost their lives in these heinous acts in 19 separate countries.
(UK-AÖ) 06.05.2004