University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Professor Keith David Watenpaugh became the latest victim of a Turkish-American group’s allegations of slander this fall when an article about his paper that appeared in the American Historical Review - titled “The League of Nations’ Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920–1927” - was published in the university’s magazine, The Armenian Weekly reports.

The article highlights Wattenpaugh’s, a historian of modern Middle East who teaches in the religious studies program and director of the UC Davis Human Rights Initiative, research on rescue efforts by Western entities during the genocide, their perception of the events unfolding before them, and the transformation of international humanitarian relief efforts.

The article on Watenpaugh’s paper was followed by a letter to the editor by Gunay Evinch, an alumnus and past president of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations (ATTA), and currently an attorney in D.C., whose clients include the Turkish Embassy. In the letter, which appeared in the magazine’s Fall 2011 issue, Evinch argued that Western humanitarian aid was strictly directed at the Ottoman Empire’s Christian population.

In a disturbing and offensive choice of words, Evinch said the Van rebellion “provided partial justification” for the Armenian Genocide - or, as he phrased it, “the May 1915 security relocation of Armenians from the eastern Anatolian war zones.”

In response, Watenpaugh acknowledged that many groups did suffer during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, but added, “Only Armenians were subjected to a state-sponsored attempt to exterminate them as a people in what became the Republic of Turkey - genocide.”

Not long after, the president of the ATAA, Ergun Kirlikovali, in a letter to the managing editor of the UC Davis magazine, Kathleen Holder, and to the head of the university’s religious studies department, Catherine Chin, accused Watenpaugh of making “defamatory” and “extraordinarily harmful” statements, reported Inside Higher Ed. The letter highlighted Watenpaugh’s final sentence in his response to Evinch, calling it “Professor Watenpaugh’s reckless insinuation that the ATAA is a foreign agent, funded by and under the direction and control of Turkey…”

The ATAA then sent letters to UC Davis officials demanding that Watenpaugh apologize, reported Inside Higher Ed. So far, the university has said it will stand behind Watenpaugh. The latter maintains his words were not “defamatory,” as he did not say the ATAA was an agent of the Turkish state, but an organization who vehemently denies the Armenian Genocide in the U.S., paralleling the same policy and propaganda of denial by the Turkish state.

Inside Higher Ed reports that Watenpaugh is set to release a statement to clarify his previous one.