Anti-Genocide section deleted from Turkish General Staff webpage

November 5, 2014 - 14:43 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - A section titled “Archive of Activities of Armenians in 1914-1918,”denying the 1915 Genocide, was deleted from the official website of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Ermenihaber said citing Turkish Cumhuriyet.

A Turkish and English-language 8-tome compilation, written by the department of military history and strategic studies n 2006-2008, was among the erased materials. The compilation claimed to be based on 1047 archive documents.

According to the general staff website, currently the book is only available at the military history department website.

Cumhuriyet also mentions large-scale events planned by Armenia and Diaspora on the Genocide centenary, further construing the deletion of materials as a “strange move.”

Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian attended the Ankara-hosted inauguration of Turkey’s new President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in late August.

At the ceremony organized for the heads of delegations, Nalbandian had a short conversation with Erdogan, giving him President Serzh Sargsyan’s official invitation to attend the Armenian Genocide centenary event on April 24, 2015.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.