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  • People lay flowers at the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on April 21, 2015
    In Depth
    23 April 2015

    People lay flowers at the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on April 21, 2015

April 24 marks Armenian Remembrance Day. From 1915, it is believed 1.5 million out of up to 2 million Armenians were killed under the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The massacre has been described as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Armenians across the globe are commemorating Armenian Remembrance Day April 24, as Turkey continues to fend off accusations that the Turkish Ottoman Empire committed ”genocide” against the Armenians in 1915-16.

The issue continues to be one of the most debated in history.

Siding with the Armenians are many western historians, and more than 20 countries. They maintain that 1.5 million died, which would account for nearly the whole population of Armenians then, and that the Ottomans intended to systemically massacre them.

That would qualify as genocide under the U.N. definition:

"Genocide is to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group."

Turkey does not deny that many Armenians died during their deportation by the Ottoman Empire, which started in 1915.

Turkey also acknowledges that that the Ottomans were in the wrong for deporting thousands of people for what it states was the sins of few who sided with the state's enemy.

However, Turkey rejects that the Ottoman Turks directed the killings against the Armenians as an ethnic and religious group.

Turkey says that Armenians died due to starvation and that their numbers did not amount to more than 800,000 people. It maintains that Muslim Ottomans were also killed during the conflict with the Russian forces in 1915.

Video: Armenian Genocide Explained

What Happened in 1915?

Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is also the world's oldest national church. The kingdom of Armenia, founded in the sixth century BC, was the first state to adopt Christianity as the state's official religion in the fourth century. The state extended from the Caucasus all the way to what is now central Turkey, Lebanon, and northern Iran.

The imperial Ottoman government was led by the Committee of Union and Progress, known as Young Turks. The founder of the Turkish Republic affiliated with the Young Turks as an army officer and is specifically seen as the perpetrator of the mass killing and deportation of the ethnic Ottoman Armenians.

The crackdown on the Armenians by the Ottoman authorities is justified, according to Turkish arguments, by the fact that they had committed treason and betrayal by aligning themselves with the enemy, Russia, and deserting their nation.

The Russian empire at the time was trying to take control of what is today east of Turkey, which many Armenians inhabited at the time.

The atmosphere in the Ottoman Empire at the time is clearly captured by a statement by then Sultan Abdul Hamit II, recorded in Nicole and Hugh Pope's book, "Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey":

"By Taking Greece and Romania [the Great Power] cut off the feet of the Turkish state. By taking Bulgaria, Serbia and Egypt they cut off our hands. Now by stirring up trouble among the Armenians they are getting close to our vital organs and want to cut out our intestines. This is the beginning of mass destruction. We must defend ourselves at all costs."

That interpretation bore a heavy impact on the 10-million-strong Armenian diaspora, one of the biggest in the world.

“I grew up carrying this burden of being Armenian with a stigmatic past,” Patil Tchilinguirian, an Armenian-Lebanese artist who is currently working on an art exhibition about the Armenian genocide, told teleSUR in an email.

“My paternal grandfather was three years old when they deported his family to the death marches. He lost his parents in front of his eyes and marched with his two sisters to Aleppo, where he was based and learned the jewelry craftsmanship and formed his family there before moving to Lebanon in the early 1940s.”

Evolution of Modern Turkey's Attitude on the Armenian Issue

Since the founding of the Turkish Republic, the way Turkish governments tackled the Armenian issue evolved from being a complete refusal of the accusations and blaming the Armenians for their own fate, to a more recent approach that acknowledged the suffering as necessity at the time due to the state of war.

In 1919, the Ottomans distanced themselves from the Young Turks and prosecuted those who were involved in the atrocities against the Armenians. An Ankara governor was hanged in 1919 for his involvement in the deportation of the genocide and others were sentenced to death in absentia as they had fled following the aftermath of the First World War.

As the British forces were effectively controlling the western borders of the Ottoman Empire, they had several prisoners who were involved in the deportation of Armenians. The Ottomans, seeking to hang on to power, supported the British plan to prosecute those involved in the Armenian deportations, and in fact recognized it as genocide.

But with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey after the defeat of the western forces at the hands of Ataturk's army, a different narrative began to take place.

By the late 1990s, as Popes' book explains, Turkish school textbooks continued a "half-story" of the events which according to the book "leaves it open to many interpretations":

"The Russians used the Armenians as a cat's paw. Thinking they would achieve independence, they attacked their innocent Turkish neighbors. The Armenian "committees" massacred tens of thousands of Turkish men, women and children. This made it hard to wage war on the Russians. So the Ottoman state decided in 1915 forcibly to deport the Armenians from the battlefields to Syria this was the right decision. During the migration some of the Armenians lost their lives due to weather conditions and insecurity … the Turkish Nation is certainly not responsible for what happened to during the Armenian migration."

Moves to Acknowledge the Genocide

In recent years there has been a growing movement around this injustice, with 23 nations formally recognizing that genocide was perpetrated against Armenians. South American nations are disproportionately represented, with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela labeling it as such.

This mood, part of international pressure, has contributed to changing Turkey’s own interpretation.

Since it came to power, the Justice and Development party, known as the AK party, has been trying to build bridges with old foes, as well as speeding up the process of joining the European Union. This approach has prompted the current AK-led government to adopt its position on the Armenian issue.

The EU parliament recognizes the Armenian killings as genocide and has repeatedly called on Turkey to do the same. However, the EU has also made it clear that Turkey's recognition of the genocide is not condition for Ankara’s entry into the bloc.

Last year, on the 99th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — now the president — extended his condolences to the decedents of the Armenian people and their families. He admitted that mistakes were committed by the Ottomans, becoming the first head of the Turkish state to ever utter such words, yet stopped short of calling it genocide.

A few days ago, the current Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu went further calling the “deportation” of the Armenians a “crime against humanity.”

However, he said that the genocide calls were only a political maneuver to put pressure on Turkey.

In April, Turkey summoned the ambassador of the Vatican to Turkey, following Pope Francis’ remarks where he used the term genocide. Davutoglu responded to the Pope's comments by saying that he had joined the conspiracy against Turkey.

Many countries, including the U.K. and U.S., use different language to describe the deaths. U.S. President Obama vowed during his presidential campaign to use the term genocide to label the Armenian killings in 1915; something that Armenian-American community leaders have been lobbying for the past few decades. However, Obama never fulfilled that promise. Both the Pentagon and the State Department have advised against using the term in order not to hurt security ties with Turkey: a key U.S. ally in the middle east and fellow NATO member.

Turkey's refusal to acknowledge the atrocities as genocide is seen by Armenians as an obstacle for healing. Artist Patil Tchilinguirian explains:

“As for Turkey it always angers me their reactions and denial, but they’re playing hide and seek. And they are suffering with a huge PR problem trying to cover historic facts. I am also very happy to know that many Turks are advocating for the recognition and hope for them to make a difference somehow.”

Documentary - Armenia: Genocide Denied

In Pictures: Remembering the Armenian Genocide

Click on the photo to go to the gallery.
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