Expert: Turkish government aimed to annihilate Armenian people

April 24, 2011 - 14:34 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Historian, expert of Analitika.at.ua information analytical center David Davtyan said the Armenian Genocide was not a result of hostilities, though the Ottoman Empire was participating in the World War I at that time.

According to Davtyan, Assyrians and Greeks also were subjected to violence and extermination during the years of Armenian Genocide.

“Armenians of all confessions - Apostolic, Catholic and Protestant - were killed. During these ethnic and confessional cleansings, from 1.5 to 2mln people were slaightered.”

“That was a planned action of the Turkish government which aimed at complete annihilation of the Armenian people. We should also remember the simultaneous cultural genocide, which, however, did not end in 1923. For example, only 913 out of 2,200 Armenian churches and monasteries were preserved after the Genocide. According to UNESCO, 464 of them completely disappeared in 1974, 262 - transferred into ruins, while another 197 – need capital repair and restoration,” Davtyan said.

“It should be noted that on May 28, 1948, in its report the UN War Crimes Commission made a reference to the Armenian Genocide as an act within the concept of modern term “crime against humanity” in the quality of a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunal,” he concluded.

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.