To Turks..The Word Genocide is a Weapon of Mass Destruction!!

A Turkish prof.: If you want, describe it as an offence against humanity, but not genocide

The Turkish journalist Deria Sezak had an interview with Dr. Ahmet Kuyas of Galatasaray University in the “Milliyet” Turkish newspaper on Oct. 3, 2005.
The main idea of the article-interview is that Dr. Kuyas admits Talaat Pasha was gravely guilty, and that a real carnage was committed against the Armenians. This carnage, according to Kuyas, can be expressed as an offence against humanity, but not genocide.
Regarding the Armenian conference, Dr. Kuyas says that despite the conference showed that it is possible to distinguish from the official “point of view” on the Armenian genocide, but it didn’t form, in general, a particular point of view. According to the “Milliyet”, Kuyas expressed surprise that some people want to take different “approaches” to the “events” of 1915, simply because they regard this issue as a “National issue”.
But Kuyas doesn’t share this idea, because, as to him, in history things would remain as they are and would never be changed. Dr. Kuyas notes that from this point of view, historical events have nothing to do with different concerns.
Dr. Kuyas accepts that a national movement had appeared among the Armenians. Ittihadists wanted the Armenians to participate in the war (WWI), but the Tashnak party responded that they want to keep neutrality. Dr. Kuyas notes that it is not possible to persist that the Armenians ran particular movements against the Ottoman state, and an Armenian village differed in nothing from a Turkish one. So, according to Kuyas, it is wrong to consider guilty a whole ethnic group, simply for being Armenian.
Referring to Talaat Pasha’s intention, Dr. Kuyas highlights that Talaat Pasha, by considering all Armenians guilty, intended to deport and exterminate them. But as it is wrong to consider guilty the whole Armenians, it is similarly wrong that all state (Ottoman) ministers could be held responsible for the deportations and the carnages, as to Kuyas.
Kuyas also notes that during the WWII, Jews were not killed by the Germans; they were killed by the Nazists. If so, you can’t say the Turks killed the Armenians, you can’t also refer these acts to the Ittihadists!! Some of the Ittihadists had dissenting stance on the deportation, according to Kuyas.
Concerning the number of the Armenian population, Dr. Kuyas says that in Anatolia there was a (Armenian) population of 1.3-2.0 million. He adds that some historians regard as killed those died of illness. Dr. Kuyas share this idea too, because he says that when the (Ottoman) state took the decision to march away all the young and the old, the male and the female people up to the age of 70 from Tokat to Allepo, it was well aware that more than the half of them wouldn’t be able to reach their destination. To march away all these people meant to send them to death. Dr. Kuyas regard Talaat Pasha guilty for this “act”.
And if some people criticize that people like Yusuf Halacoglu or Hikmet Ozdemir were not invited to this conference, Dr. Kuyas says that let these people too organize their conference. Even the participants of the Armenian conference were not harmonious in all issues. Taner Akcham says “It is genocide”, I say “It isn’t genocide”. I would also say: “What would I do that Talaat Pasha is guilty”. To be or not to be a part of Europe wouldn’t change this truth.

Translated from Istanbul-based Marmara online newspaper
Oct. 4, 2005 issue