Eduard L. Danielyan
More than five millennia-old ethno-spiritual, political and cultural roots of the Armenian statehood in the Armenian Highland are attested to by the archaeological and architectural monuments, petroglyphs, cuneiform, ancient and medieval written and other historic sources. Historical truth is the backbone and informational defensive shield of the national security of Armenia.
Turkey and Azerbaijan use different types of disinformation and manipulations in information warfare, being unable to overcome the truths about the past and the present of the Armenian nation, the Republic of Armenia and the Artsakh Republic. Falsification of the history and historical geography of Armenia constitutes part of their desperate attempts to deny the Armenians’ historical and legal rights as to the western part of their Homeland – Western Armenia, Cilician Armenia and Armenian Mesopotamia, which were subjected to the Armenian Genocide devastation, as well as – to the eastern part of their Homeland – liberated lands of Artsakh. Turkish and Azerbaijani deceptive methods with a stillborn outcome are crushed against the strongholds of Armenia’s history and the civilizational value system. Those engaged in deceptive information operations display aggressive fallaciousness, as is the case with the Turkish authorities who are scared1 of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide2, territorial reparations, the Armenian demand for the restoration of historical justice and the return of native lands3 [13, էջ 76-86; 14, էջ 475; 15; 10, pp. 12, 41].
Examining the formation of the concept of information warfare and the increasingly dominant role that deception4 is taking within its framework, W. Hutchinson noted: “The concept of information warfare began as a technology oriented tactic to gain information dominance by superior command and control… Information warfare in the Information Age is about controlling the ‘infosphere’. It includes perceptions and information flows at the tactical, operational and strategic level in times of peace, tension, and war. As such, it means controlling sources and the dissemination of information. By definition, information warfare is about using and protecting information… The defensive side of information warfare is concerned with the protection and integrity of data, people within the systems” [17, pp. 213-223]. “The philosophical and political foundations of falsification of fundamental historical questions of the 20th century” were discussed at the meeting of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (the Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 February 2014). Some special problems of general methodological significance were touched upon. For example, Sven Heymanns noted that “lies about politics and history have wide-ranging implications… The tools of the historian are access to the archives and the evaluation of sources, but not falsifications and lies”.5
Turkish propagandists have been busy with fabrication of “history” particularly since the 1930s – the Atatürk-sanctioned forgery (“Turkish History Thesis”)6 for non-existent “ancient Turkey” by misrepresenting archaeological materials and consequently complete distortion of ancient world history.
Methodologically approaching to the criteria of scientific studies, W. Weber noted: “Historical truth had to be defended as a basic principle of scientific research”7. The “Turkish History Thesis” was criticized sharply by Armenian and foreign historians. Manvel Zulalyan demonstrated its complete bankruptcy in falsification of the history of ancient and medieval Armenia [19]. In western historiography the “Turkish History Thesis” was most fundamentally criticized by Clive Foss. Unmasking the pan-Turkic motives of Kemal’s fraud, Foss wrote: “This might seem to be manifest nonsense, especially as it was obvious that Chinese and Indians were not Turks… Atatürk’s accomplishments… owe much to the previous discredited regime, the Committee of Union and Progress, the “Young Turks” who ran the country from 1908 until the end of the First World War” [20, pp. 13, 16]. It is obvious that he meant the Young Turks’ genocidal crimes.
R. W. Smith, Eric Markusen, Robert Jay Lifton wrote: “From 1915 to 1917 the Young Turk regime in the Ottoman Empire carried out a systematic, premeditated, centrally-planned genocide against the Armenian people… Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian genocide – eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors – denial of the Armenian genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present” [21, pp. 2-3]. In this regard Gregory Stanton noted: “Denial, the final stage of genocide is best overcome by public trials and truth commissions, followed by years of education about the facts of the genocide, particularly for the children of the group or nation that committed the crime…”8.
Especially since the 1980s in their efforts to enter the European Community, the Turkish authorities have been trying to change the extremely negative impression of the image of Turks9. Turgut Özal during his premiership (1983–1989)10 became personally involved with publication of a politicized and falsified history book [28; 29]. Campaigning actively to bring Turkey into the European Community Özal surprised the world with his pseudo-historical book, which, as S.Vryonis remarked, “was not initially intended to recover, reconstruct, and explain history, but rather it is agonistic and aims to persuade Europe to accede to Turkey’s political and economic goals and desires. The work is hardly documented, and in the few instances where there is rudimentary documentation of sorts, they are bizarre and can best be described as distorted. The lack of scholarly documentation harmonizes with the fact that the book, which carries the name of Mr.Turgut Özal, then the prime minister of Turkey, is in effect a semi-official, state and party pronouncement on what the history of the Turks has been, is now, and will be in the future” [26, pp. 2-3].
Turkish falsifications of history have gained adherents among the centers and researchers cooperating with Turkey. For example, interpretations of archaeological materials are distorted by falsified toponymic terminology11 in some pseudo-scientific works, thus the historic heritages of Western Armenia and Asia Minor are ascribed to non-existent “ancient Turkey” [31; 32; 33, etc.]. The most overwhelming contradictions in abortive attempts of the Turkish falsifiers and their accomplices to “revise history” in accordance with their maniacal “visions” are determined by the fact that the ancestors of Turks, Seljuk and Oguz Turkic nomadic tribes12 from the trans-Altai and trans-Aral regions13had violently invaded some territories of Western Asia. Thus they had no relation to the ancient and medieval history and original toponymy of the western part of the Armenian Highland, Asia Minor, the left bank of the Kura River14, etc. Since the beginning of their invasions and till the present, devastations, plunder and annihilation of Armenian historical monuments have been carried out in Western Armenia and Cilicia occupied by savage Turkic nomads and their descendants15. Recent evi¬den¬ce of continuation of the programmed annihilation of the Armenian historic heritage in Western Armenia are the turning of the Armenian Church of Surb Arakelots (Holy Apostles) (930-942 AD) [40, էջ 192] into a mosque16, the destruction of the historic Armenian houses in Mush (in Taron gavar) in 201317, and other anti-Armenian provocative actions, such as Turkey’s involvement in the attack on the Armenian-populated Kessab18. On March 21-22, 2014 the Turkey-supported armed gangs openly passed through Turkish military barracks, crossed the Turkish-Syrian border, and attacked the town of Kessab19. Snipers targeted the civilian population and launched mortar attacks on Kessab and the surrounding villages in the Northwest of Syria. Aram I, the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, responding to the Kessab tragedy, said: “The same genocide-committed Turkey uses the chance to strike on the Armenian people”20. Some 700 Armenian families were evacuated by the local Armenian community leadership to neighboring Basit and Latakia; part of them found refuge in the Armenian Church of Surb Asdvadsadzin (St. Virgin). On March 23, the attacking groups took the remaining Armenian families hostage, desecrated the town’s three Armenian churches, pillaging local residences and occupying the town and surrounding villages. On March 24 President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, who was in Netherlands at the Hague Nuclear Security Summit, expressed deep concern over the events in Kessab. He reminded that during the first scourge in April 1909, when the Turkish armed detachments invaded Kessab, burnt and looted the houses, Armenians found refuge in Latakia. After returning to Kessab they reconstructed their houses. In 1915, “when the Kesab population also experienced migration and exiles of the Armenian Genocide. Armenians of Kesab were exiled in two directions: to Der Zor and to the south up to Jordan. Thousands died en route, the majority perished in the desert of Deir ez-Zor. The third deportation of Kessab Armenians today is a serious challenge to ethnic minority rights’ protection mechanisms of the 21st century. I think that everyone should realize that these parallels should sober all the sides… I have already instructed the diplomatic missions at the UN Headquarters in New-York and Geneva to raise the issue of ensuring the security of the Armenians in Kessab and their safe return to their permanent places of residence at the structures dealing with human rights and ethnic minorities,” said President Serzh Sargsyan21. On March 24 in a telephone conversation with the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia Aram I, “the Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II expressed his concern about the recent events and condemned the terrorist actions of Turkey-supported extremists against the peaceful Armenian population of Kessab”22.
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez was joined by Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Frank Pallone and Michael Grimm, Armenian Genocide Resolution Lead Sponsors David Valadao and Adam Schiff and Representatives Brad Sherman, Jim Costa and James McGovern in condemning the recent attacks against the historically Armenian city of Kessab, Syria, urging the State Department to investigate the incursion and take immediate action to safeguard the vulnerable population23. “We would like to thank Chairman Menendez and the many other Congressional defenders of human rights who have stepped forward to call the world’s urgent attention to the attacks against the predominantly Armenian population of Kessab,” said the Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director Aram Hamparian.24 In a joint letter to President Obama, Representatives Pallone, Grimm, Valadao and Schiff noted: “When coupled with a mass exodus of the Armenian community, these events are far too reminiscent of the early days of the Armenian Genocide, which took place nearly 100 years ago in Ottoman Turkey under the cover of World War I.”25
“During a daily briefing in Washington on March 28 U.S. Department of State deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said the United States is “deeply troubled by recent fighting and violence that is endangering the Armenian community in Kessab, Syria, and has forced many to flee…”. “Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia also issued a statement condemning the attacks on Kessab that it said was conducted with the support of artillery and heavy materiel. It strongly condemned the acts of terrorism and other crimes against civilians, clearly stating that tank guns were applied from the territory of Turkey.”26
Turkish falsifiers distort and eradicate Armenian geographical terms and toponyms, “plagiarize” concepts that have no relation to their nomadic predatory past (which is full of the blood of millions of innocent victims), thus putting into circulation a fake “concept” of the Turkish “historical-civilizational role” contrary to their role in the destruction of world civilization. Turgut Özal absurdly and ignorantly wrote: “In looking at our history as insider of Anatolia, we can claim to have lived on this land since the beginning of the Anatolian civilizations, for both culturally and demographically the preceding civilization has each time been carried over, at least to a certain extent, into the succeeding one. It was we, therefore, who brought about the Neolithic revolution…” [29, p. 346]. Turkey’s enormous ambitions obsessively expressed by Özal are as follows: “European civilization was born in Anatolia, which is Turkish, and therefore Europe is morally obliged to acknowledge its Anatolian-Turkish origins and by extension to include Turkey, the cradle of Western Civilization, as a full member of the European Community”27. Özal, “teaching” the European Community “a lesson” of broad-mindedness, arrogantly continued: “No one in Western Europe can claim to be as Aegean as ourselves. To accept this fact, however, means that one first has to give up an ethnocentric perspective of history… A Europe capable of accepting Turkey as a full member of the Community will have risen above ethnocentrism… She will understand how illogical it is for a Europe not to include Anatolia, the cradle of civilization in the northern Mediterranean” [29, pp. 347, 356].
The idea of civilization is completely alien to Turkey. The evidence of that is the Armenian Genocide, destruction and ruins of historical-architectural monuments, cultural-educational centers and cities, towns and villages in Western Armenia, Cilician Armenia and Armenian Mesopotamia in result of military campaigns, conquests and genocidal actions organized and realized by the Ottoman, the Young Turk, the Kemalist regimes and their successors. At the end of the 20th century R. D. Kaplan witnessed the complete destruction of the Armenian civilization in Western Armenia, where he traveled, reaching Trapezunt. He wrote that except for an occasional ruin “every trace of Armenian civilization has been erased…” [41, p. 318]28
An obvious case of the anti-civilizational hypocritical policy of Turkey29 in international affairs is the destruction of cultural-historical monuments also in the occupied northern part of Cyprus. “Lobby for Cyprus”30 published the following statement: “There is irony in the fact that while Istanbul basks in the limelight as Europe’s City of Culture for 2010, Turkey, an aspiring EU member, continues to vandalize and destroy Europe’s cultural and Christian heritage in Cyprus”31.
Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his opening statement at the Second Forum of “The Alliance of Civilizations”32 (6.04.2009) in Istanbul (Constantinople), completely falsifying historic facts said: “… let me state with great happiness that this land has been rather the home of peace, tolerance, a culture of coexistence, mutual compassion and respect. Istanbul is the most obvious example of this. Istanbul not only connects two continents, namely, Europe and Asia; Istanbul is not only located at the intersection of Asia, Europe and Africa; Istanbul has also its proper place in the world as a city which embraces and harmonizes cultures, civilizations, races, religions and languages in the melting pot of history. Istanbul33, named as the 2010 European Capital of Culture, continues to convey messages of compassion and tolerance throughout the world, as it has always done in history… The Hagia Sophia in Iznik34, House of the Virgin Mary in Izmir35, considered among the most holy places of Christianity, and the St. Nicholas Church in Antalya are but a few living examples of our 2,000-year culture of coexistence…”36.
Lies and falsifications in Erdogan’s speech demonstrably exemplified his goal: to use the podium of “the Alliance of Civilizations” for Turkish political purposes. Contrary to his lies, the fact is that after the battle of Manazkert (1071 AD) nomadic Turks’ conquests had disastrous consequences [44, S. 1010]. From the beginning of the conquest of Constantinople (1453) the city was drowned in blood by Turks. A monastic scribe in Crete wrote with horror about the capture of Constantinople by the Turks: “There never has been and never will be a more dreadful happening” [34, p. 1]. Centuries later, on April 24, 1915 Constantinople was turned into a scene of total carnage: thousands of Armenian intellectuals (poets, musicians, publicists, editors, lawyers, doctors, deputies, community leaders, clergymen, teachers) were put under arrest by the Turkish government’s order and sent into exile and were horrifically slaughtered; there were also many Armenians tortured and killed in the streets of the city [45].
Erdogan’s lie about Istanbul bursts like a soap bubble. Instead of “the melting pot of history” it is appropriate to speak about turning the city into a genocidal boiler. Contrary to Erdogan’s delirious declaration that Istanbul continuously conveys “messages of compassion and tolerance throughout the world, as it has always done in history”, it became known as the genocidal city. Anti-Armenian actions continuously have been taking place there up to the present, as it is noted: “The funeral of 84-year-old Marissa Kuchuk, who was brutally murdered in her apartment in Istanbul, was held on Jan. 5, 2013 amid fears that violent acts against the country’s Christian minorities will continue to be swept under the rug… In recent years there have been several attacks against Armenians in Turkey. Earlier in December (2012), another Armenian woman was brutally attacked and robbed. Months earlier, an Armenian woman was called an infidel and attacked in a cab by the driver himself…”37.
There was no “2,000-year culture of coexistence” of Turks with indigenous Christians, as Erdogan tried to assure in his speech, because there were no Turks in those times. Later, after the nomadic Turkic invasions the periods of devastations, plunder and massacres followed one after another, culminating in the genocidal acts. Erdogan completely falsified historic facts in order to disguise Turkey’s genocidal crimes38. From the very beginning of their rule the Kemalist leaders, their accomplices and followers used the Ottoman and the Young Turk regimes’ genocidal experience of distortion of the history of Armenia39 and falsifications of the Armenian toponyms [51, pp. 159-179] to cover up the Armenian Genocide.40
Turkish and Azerbaijani falsifications in archaeology may be exemplified by the following spurious publication with a completely erroneous title: “Azerbaijan – Land between East and West. Transfer of knowledge and technology during the “First Globalization” of the VII – IV millennium BC”. Without mentioning the name of Armenia its archaeological sites41 have been falsely “located” in “Eastern Anatolia” and “Azerbaijan” by the Turkish and Azerbaijani falsifiers [52, pp. 8, 41, 52, 55, 64, 82, 88]. But, in reality, on the one hand, the term “Eastern Anatolia” has nothing to do with the territory of the Armenian Highland, which is to the east of Asia Minor42 (Anatolia) and, on the other hand, the name of “Azerbaijan”43 historically corresponds only to the Iranian province of Adarbaigan-Azerbaijan-Atropatene. According to Strabo, ancient Atropatene was located to the south-east of the Kingdom of Great Armenia [38, XI, 13, 1].
The pseudo-theorization of the “problem of conflicts” is another type of falsification. For example, Behlül Özkan wrote: “One of the main barriers to reaching a peaceful solution in deep-rooted conflicts such as Palestine, Bosnia and Nagorno-Karabakh is that the involved parties do not want to compromise. The conflicting sides have constructed a narrative of the conflict by identifying the ‘other side’ as a ‘threat’ to its identity” [55, p. 584]44. Jumping from one biased “argument” to another, Özkan started his analysis of “the conflict” from 192345, intentionally skipping the fact of the forced and illegal decision of the Communist Caucasian Bureau (1921)46. The native Armenian Artsakh population never accepted that unlawful decision and struggled for reunification with the Motherland47. The Artsakh Liberation war (1991-1994) resulted in the victory of Armenian freedom-fighters over aggressive Azerbaijan.
So it has not been “the contested territory” conflict as if sanctified by “ethnocracies utilizing religious myths”, as Özkan tries to present, but the process of reestablishment of natural and legal rights of the Armenians of Artsakh in their Homeland by legal actions and liberation struggle. Azerbaijan, as a defeated aggressor, has only one way out in the existing situation – it must sign the capitulation act and pull its troops out of occupied territories of north-eastern Artsakh.
Özkan distorting facts, wrote: “Both sides of the conflict instrumentalised history as it played an important role in strengthening the collective identity. Furthermore, history is manipulated to justify the claim of ‘we were on this territory first’ to exclude ‘the other’ from the constructed mythical space of home-land” [51, p. 584]48. But it is obvious that only the Azerbijani falsifiers and their supporter Özkan are busy with manipulations. Despite Özkan knows that “Azerbaijan” and “Azerbaijani”49 are invented terms (for the territory out of Iranian Azerbaijan), yet neglecting historical facts50, he threw into the scale, on the one hand, the truthful history of Armenia and, on the other hand, false history of non-existent “Azerbaijan”51. Özkan’s anti-scientific method is based on negation of the truthful history from the present-day politicized position of Turkey and Azerbaijan coming from falsification of history. Thus misrepresenting historical facts, he wrote: “Armenian national discourse employed religious narratives like “the first Christian nation, and a chosen people” to justify the claims on territories that once belonged to ancient Armenia as a matter of divine truth” [55, p. 585]. Özkan is ignorant of ancient and medieval historical sources, otherwise he would now that Armenia52 had been known in ancient world long before the proclamation of Christianity as the state religion (301 AD), as it follows from the 3rd – the first half of the 1st millennia BC cuneiform [Sumero-Akkadian, Assyrian, Biainian (Ararat-Urartu) and Persian (520/519 BC)], Greco-Roman (since the 6th century BC. et seq.) and medieval written sources.
Completely in line with Azerbaijan’s disinformation propaganda Özkan placed aggressive (Azerbaijan) and defensive (Artsakh) sides on the same level, and presented Armenian liberated territories in а hostile wording: “December 1991, full-scale war started between the two sides. Within three years, Armenian forces occupied the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding Azerbaijani districts… Today 14.5 percent of the Azerbaijani territory is still under Armenian occupation…” [55, p. 577, 587]. But there has been no “Azerbaijani territory” out of Iranian Azerbaijan (ancient Atropatena to the south-east of Urmia Lake). Ninety years of an artificial “nation-building” (“Azerbaijan”) do not give any legal right to challenge the historic and legal rights of the Artsakh Armenians – native inhabitants of the eastern regions of their Motherland – Armenia. So Armenians have not occupied artificially formed “Azerbaijan”; Armenians liberated eastern lands of their Motherland.
Turkish falsifiers try to obliterate historic memory, destroy and appropriate the Armenian historic heritage of Western Armenia, including Armenian Cilicia and Armenian Mesopotamia by falsifications and destruction of Armenian cultural monuments. They encroach53 also on “the Silk Road Integral program” initiated by UNESCO54.
Contrary to their efforts, the well-known civilizational contribution of Armenia to the history of the Silk Road is of special importance [67; 68; 69, с. 292-311]: the King of Kings of the Armenian Empire, Tigran the Great (95-55 BC) took under his protection the Silk Road’s branches in Western Asia carrying out civilizational activities55 [71, էջ 3-12]; centuries later the capital of the Armenian Bagratuni Kingdom (885-1045 AD), Ani (from 961 AD) prospered as a political, cultural, commercial centre and the junction of great international trade routes [72], etc. In order for the Silk Road International programme to be really truthful, the historic-cultural heritage of Armenia must be presented in a holistic territorial coverage – the Armenian Highland (Great Armenia and Armenia Minor), Armenian Cilicia and Armenian Mesopotamia56.
Turkey and Azerbaijan are absolutely unable to contend against Armenia in history, historical geography and civilizational contribution to the world treasury of culture, so they wage information warfare by means of disinformation and manipulations.
Turkish government wages information warfare57 against the memory of the Armenian Genocide martyrs and the legal rights of the survived Armenians and their generations living in Diaspora and the Republic of Armenia. Turkey is escalating the wide dissemination of disinformation by means of blocking, degrading, falsifying or forging information. It is well known that, on the one hand, Turkey spends millions to cover up the Armenian Genocide58 [19, pp. 4-5], and, on the other hand, Azerbaijan is handing out millions of petrodollars for its propagandistic lies59.
Armenian Defense Minister, Seyran Ohanyan, pointing to the significance of the victory in Artsakh Liberation war against aggressive Azerbaijan, said that the “anti-Armenian campaign and distortions in the research and cultural fields realized by the Azerbaijan propaganda state machine make it imperative to disclose these falsifications and expose their threats not only for Armenia but also for the whole region”.60 The Armenian Defense Minister stressed the importance of Armenia’s overwhelming priority on the moral-spiritual and cultural front in information warfare against Azerbaijan’s hostile propaganda.61
Analyzing the informational data concerning information warfare waged by Turkey and Azerbaijan and their allies against the NKR, Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan noted: “Analysis of information flows give the impression that the Azerbaijani structures waging information warfare get certain, in particular methodological support of the specialists from Turkey and other ally states of Azerbaijan. It is also not excluded the participation of experts of big energy companies based in this country in information operations against the NKR: the latter ones are known to be well experienced in carrying out information operations. This circumstance is an important element to give a right estimation to Azerbaijan’s information resources and is to be a subject of more detailed study”62.
Employing creative methods, providing deeply rooted analyses for fundamental issues of history and politics are important from the aspect of national security. Considering the role of the media from the point of view of national security, it is noted: “Today there is a direct relationship between media and national security. National security issues can be investigated in relation to secure and unsecure factors, a distinction that helps to clarify the relation between internal security and communications, on the one hand, and the effects of new communication media on external dimension, on the other hand. New media in the information era challenge many previous assumptions and principles concerning national security” [73, p. 37].
The enormous efforts and huge amounts of money that Turkey and Azerbaijan spend on information warfare against the Republic of Armenia, the Artsakh Republic and the Armenian Diaspora are doomed to fail, because of irrefutable facts of the history of Armenia and the spiritual power of the Armenian historical heritage, as a proof of irresistible force of historical truth revealed through the history of Armenia and historical justice crowned with the Artsakh victory.
1 The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December 9, 1948 is a very important international document the visions of which Turkish rulers view with horror.
2 Intensifying since the late 19th and early 20th centuries Turkish genocidal policy in the Ottoman Empire [the massacres of the Armenians in Western Armenia (1894-1896) [1, pp. 83-98, 2] and Kilikia (35.000 Armenians were massacred in Adana and its neighbourhood in 1909) [3, էջ 81; 4, pp. 5-6] resulted in the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 [more than 1,5 million Armenians were killed and eight hundred thousand deported [4] committed by the Young Turk and the Kemalist regimes in Western Armenia, Kilikia, some western regions of Eastern Armenia and the Armenian-populated areas of Asia Minor [5; 6; 7; 8; 9, p. 90; 10, pp. 24-25; 11 pp. 133-142, 12, с. 28, etc.].
3 Henry The¬riault: The Global Reparations Movement and the Meaningful Resolution of the Armenian Genocide, http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/05/06/reparations-2/; H. Theriault: Post-Denial Denial,http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/04/30/theriault-post-denial-denial/, Harut Sassounian What’s next on Armenian Genocide? Beyond recognition, towards resti¬tution, http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2013-05-28-what-s-next-on-armenian-genocide-beyond-recognition-towards-restitution;
4 Analyzing the principles of deception for propaganda purposes Scot Macdonald noted: “The goal of the deceiver is to make an adversary perceive reality in a way that will help the deceiver by making the deceived do something the deceiver desires” [16, p. 83].
5https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/12/babe-f12.html
6 It was a total fake, having a huge impact on the Turkish falsifications of history. Erik J. Zürcher critically presented the principles of Kemalism’s ideology as the backbone of formation of “the personality cult around Mustafa Kemal during and even more after his lifetime… it is still very much part of the official culture of Turkey”. At the same time Zürcher sharply criticized the Atatürk sanctioned “Turkish History Thesis” [18, pp. 190, 199-200]
7https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/12/babe-f12.html
8 Gregory Stanton. The 8 Stages of Genocide. This article was originally written in 1996 and was presented as the first Working Paper (GS 01) of the Yale Program in Genocide Studies in 1998. http://www.genocidewatch.org/images/8StagesBriefingpaper.pdf “In 1997, The International Association of Genocide Scholars declared unanimously that the Turkish massacres of over one million Armenians was a crime of genocide” (G. Stanton, The Cost of Denial. – Genocide Watch. The International Alliance to End Genocide, http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutus/thecostofdenial.html).
9 It will suffice to remember the lines by Victor Hugo (“Les Turcs ont passé là: tout est ruine et deuil”) [22, p. 476] and Mark Twain (“Abdul-Aziz, the representative of a people by nature and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressive, superstitious—and a government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood”) [23, p. 75]. France, Great Britain and Russia asserted in their joint declaration, dated 24 May 1915, that “… in the presence of these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied Governments publicly inform the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for the said crimes all members of the Ottoman Government as well as those of its agents who are found to be involved in such massacres …” [24, p. 35; 25, p. 16]. Clive Foss noted: “The Europeans, however, traditionally took a dim view of the Turks, formerly seen as cruel and violent conquerors, ‘the Terrible Turk’, and more recently the ‘Sick Man of Europe’. The Turks themselves were confused about their identity…” [20, p. 11].
10 In December 1986 the Turkish police arrested H. Potuğlu. S. Vryionis noted: ”H. Potuğlu, the publisher of the Turkish edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was arrested and charged in the courts as a propagandist who intended to destroy Turkish national sentiment. The prosecutor of the State Security asked for a penalty of between seven and one-half to fifteen years imprisonment. What was her crime? An entry in the English version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica carried a footnote that read: “During the Crusades the mountainous region of Cilicia was under the hegemony of the Armenian Cilician kingdom” [26, pp. 107-108]. In the late 1980s expressing the Turkish government’s policy of the denial of the Armenian Genocide and the avoidance of responsibility for it, Turgut Özal stated that “modern Turkey was not responsible for the events of the Ottoman era” [27, p. 46- 47].
11 Paying attention to the malicious distortion of toponyms and their mapping, it is noted that “maps like speeches and paintings, are authored collections of information and are also subject to distortions arising from ignorance, greed, ideology or malice” [30, p. 2].
12 A. Palmer noted: “Originally the Turks were nomadic horsemen from Central Asia… ”. From the 14th century appeared “Osmanli” (corrupted into “Ottoman” in the languages of western Europe) dynasty [34, p. 2]. A. Toynbee wrote: “Their “eponym, ‘Osmãn, was the son of a certain Ertoghrul who had led into Anatolia (Asia Minor – E.D.) a nameless band of Turkish refugees: an insignificant fragment of the human wreckage… ” [35, p. 151].
13 Voltaire (1694-1778) noted: “If you have nothing to tell us, but that on the banks of the Oxus and Jaxartes, one barbarian has been succeeded by another barbarian, in what respect do you benefit the public?” [36, p. 70].
14 In ancient and medieval times the boundary between Great Armenia and proper Aluank (in Armenian sources) (“Albania” in antique sources) was along the Kura [37, V.12. 1, cf. 38, XI, 14. 4].
15 Total destruction of Armenian historical monuments is defined as genocide of culture or cultural genocide [36].
16http://news.am/eng/news/136463.html#
17http://armenpress.am/eng/news/724842/historical-armenian-houses-of-mush-are-being-destroyed.html
18 From ancient times Armenians have lived in that region: it was within the Armenian Empire of Tigran II the Great (95-55 BC) and centuries later, for a certain period – on the southern borders of the medieval Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.
19http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/03/23/kessab-targeted-by-al-qaeda-front-groups-in-cross-border-attack-from-turkey/ http://civilnet.am/kesab-chronicle-historic-town-under-siege/
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/03/23/kessab-targeted-by-al-qaeda-front-groups-in-cross-border-attack-from-turkey/
20http://armenpress.am/eng/news/755470/syrian-tv-channels-respond-positively-to-armenian-government’s-position-on-kesab-events.html
21http://www.president.am/en/press-release/item/2014/03/24/President-Serzh-Sargsyan-statement-Kesab-Syria-in-Hague/
22http://www.aysor.am/en/news/2014/03/25/catholicos-qesab/
23 On March 27/28 it became known that the Turkish tanks and helicopters crossed the Turkish-Syrian border to support the attackers in the area of Kessab (http://armenpress.am/eng/news/755776/militants-establish-control-over-kesabs-baghjaghas-armenian-village.html).
24http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=2356
25 Members of Congress Condemn Kessab Attacks. 31/03/2014 http://hayernaysor.am/en/ամն-օրենսդիրները-դատապարտել-են-հարձա/ Commenting on blocking Twitter by the order of Erdogan and the Kessab tragic events, H.Sassounian noted: “What do these two seemingly unrelated events have in common? Erdogan himself indirectly answered this question, during a campaign rally on March 20: “We will wipe out Twitter. I don’t care at all what the international community says. Everyone will see the power of the Turkish Republic…”. Sassounian concluded his article with the following remark: “On the eve of the Genocide Centennial the Turkish government and its allies are directly or indirectly embarking on a new campaign of exterminating Armenians in Syria” (Harut Sassounian: What Should Armenians Learn from Prime Minister Erdogan? http://www.armenianweekly.com/2014/03/25/sassounian-what-should-armenians-learn-from-prime-minister-erdogan/).
26http://www.armenianow.com/news/53125/armenia_kesab_syria_united_states_russia
27 This citation has been translated into English by Speros Vryonis [26, p. 4] from the French edition of Turgut Özal’s book [28].
28 About reopening of the church of Surb Khach (the Holy Cross, built in 915-921) on Aghtamar Island in Lake Van” (http://www.armenianow.com/news/20176/aghtamar_reopens) R. Safrastyan noted (21.12.09) that it was “a formal gesture”. Thousands of the Armenian churches have been systematically destroyed and desecrated in Western Armenia and their destruction by the sanctions of Turkish authorities continues up to now.
29 In contrast to fraudulent attempts of Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide, on 28 February 2002 “European parliament condemned the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915. The fifteen European Union member countries confirmed that Turkey followed a genocidal policy directed against the Armenian population early last century. The deputies of the European Parliament voted for the resolution passed earlier (1987) condemning the Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey in 1915… The resolution’s new version contains a call on Turkey to lift the blockade against Armenia as well as to undertake other actual moves for joining the European Union” (http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/3954/).
30 It is a non-party-political human rights NGO based in the UK with the aim of reuniting Cyprus. It was formed in 1992 and since its inception has campaigned against the invasion, occupation, ethnic cleansing and destruction of the cultural heritage of 37 per cent of the Republic of Cyprus by Turkey (http://www.lobbyforcyprus.org/aboutus.aspx).
31 “It is well known that in 1974 Turkey carried out an illegal invasion of Cyprus, as a result of which virtually all Greek Cypriots in the north of the island were ethnically cleansed and driven out of their homes…. This Christian heritage, Europe’s heritage, has been systematically desecrated since 1974 … Every attempt has been made to obliterate the rich Greek and Christian heritage of the northern areas of Cyprus. Even today, archeological sites are being bulldozed to make way for militaristic statues and monuments to bolster the existence of the illegal regime in the occupied area…” (http://www.lobbyforcyprus.org/statement.aspx?id=870). Adopting from Turkey the same “bulldozing method” of destruction of historic monuments, after innumerable assaults of the previous decades, the surviving clusters of many thousand Armenian cross-stones (khachkars) in the Armenian Cemetery of Old Jugha (in the ancient Armenian gavar Goghtan to the south-east of the Nakhijevan gavar) were destroyed by the sanctions of the criminal Azerbaijani authorities at the dawn of the 21st century [42].
32 The Alliance of Civilizations was established in 2005 by an initiative proposed by the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and Erdogan, under the auspices of the United Nations (http://www.unesco.org/new/en/venice/culture/intercultural-dialogue/alliance-of-civilizations/). There is an opposition to it (Brett D. Schaefer, The U. S. Should not Join the “Alliance of Civilizations”. – National Review Online. May 13, 2010. http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/site/articles/?a=6506).
33 Erdogan did not mention the name of Constantinople. The name “Istanbul” had neither ancient, nor medieval application. In reality, Constantinople was violently turned into “Istanbul”. “Constantinople officially was renamed Istanbul in 1930” [43, p. 177]
34 And yet in October 2011 “the Hagia Sophia of Iznik was closed to the public for several days of construction work by the Directorate General of Foundations, a department of the prime minister’s office in Ankara which manages historical buildings around the country… The Hagia Sophia was reopened for service as a mosque” (Susanne Gusten. The Church That Politics Turned Into a Mosque http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/world/middleeast/the-church-that-politics-turned-into-a-mosque.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0).
35 A Greek heritage site in Asia Minor, the House of Virgin Mary is in the ancient city of Ephesus, which is at a distance of 81 km from Smyrna (modern Izmir).
36http://www.unaoc.org/images/erdogan forum speech (4).pdf
37 Ayse Gunaysu. Funeral of Murdered Armenian Woman in Istanbul Evokes Memories of Earlier Cover-Ups http://www.armenianweekly.com/2013/01/06/funeral-of-murdered-armenian-woman-in-istanbul-evokes-memories-of-earlier-cover-ups/ In January 2007 Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul. “This was shortly after the premiere of the genocide documentary Screamers, in which he is interviewed about Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the case against him under Article 301” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrant_Dink).
38 A detailed analysis of genocidal crimes can be found in the book by Alex Alvarez, where some conclusions are based on the facts of the Armenian Genocide [46].
39 Turkish leaders and pseudo-historians are on very bad terms with historical facts. With regard to falsification of the history of Armenia by Esat Uras [47], Christopher Walker in his book-review unveiling the fallaciousness of Esat’s book, noted: “Uras shows no understanding of the history or even the reality of Armenia” [48, p. 166]. Uras denies the Armenian Genocide by falsifying the Armenian history and historical geography. The following forgery is an example of the false information fabrication by Uras: “At the outbreak of the War, there was very great tension between the Armenians and the Turks. During mobilization, Soviet-made guns were discovered in the possession of many Armenians… It was under these circumstances that the Armenian rebellion broke out in April 1915” [47, p. 884]. But it is the total absurd to write about “the rebellion” with “Soviet-made guns” in 1915, because there was no Soviet power in Russia before November 1917 [49, էջ 154, 256]. On the other hand, after the request-letter (April 26, 1920) of Mustafa Kemal (he offered to fight together allegedly “for the sake of all the oppressed” against the world imperialism) to Lenin [50, с. 147-148], the Soviet government criminally supplied the Turks with arms and gold, which launched the aggression in the autumn against the Republic of Armenia.
40 Contrary to the Turkish authorities’ efforts, 21 countries and many international organizations and regional governments and parliaments have recognized the Armenian Genocide as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Genocide Scholars Association Officially Recognizes Ottoman Genocides Against Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and other Christians (http://itwasgenocide.armenica.org/IAGS_1915_genocide_recognition.pdf). The Russian Federation – State Duma (April 14, 1995) particularly stated that the Armenian Genocide was committed in Armenians’ historic homeland territory of Western Armenia http://www.anca.org/genocide_resource/recognition.php#Russian
41 In reality archaeological sites of Mush, Van, Kharberd are in Western Armenia, and Nakhijevan, Shamkor/ Shamkhor (in Utik), Askeran region (in Artsakh) are in Eastern Armenia. The Turkish and Azerbaijani falsifiers used of the Armenian toponyms’ distorted forms (Elazığ, Naxçivan, Shamkir).
42 “The Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern”, Sixth edition, Boston, 2001,
http://worldhistory.50webs.com/111.html; http://worldhistory.50webs.com/116.html
43 In the second half of 1918 this name was stolen from the Iranian north-western province of Azerbaijan and with Pan-Turkic purposes given to artificially formed “the Tartar Republic of Azerbaijan ” (H. Nahapetyan, Publications in American Periodicals Concerning Nagorno-Karabakh in 1918-20, http://www.noravank.am/eng/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=3534) or “Eastern-Caucasian Muslim Republic” [53, էջ 285], then it was applied to “Azerbaijan SSR” (again aiming to annex Iranian Azerbaijan) [54, с. 703, 775-776]. Thus, what is today “the Republic of Azerbaijan” has neither ancient, medieval, and new periods of history, nor historic and legal rights over the Armenian territories of Artsakh, Utik and Nakhijevan.
44 But it is well known, that Nagorno-Karabakh is the modern name of a mountainous part of the Armenian region of Artsakh. In ancient and medieval times Artsakh was the 10th province of Great Armenia [52, էջ 110].
45 Falsely presenting territorial situation, Özkan wrote: “There had been tensions and concerns especially among the Karabakh Armenians since 1923, when Soviet leadership created the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the territory of Azerbaijan” [51, p. 580]. But Artsakh has never been “within the territory of Azerbaijan”, because artificially formed in the second half of 1918 “Azerbaijan” had nothing to do with millennia old Artsakh.
46 On July 5, 1921 the Caucasian Bureau of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party made a forced and illegal decision to transfer Nagorno-Karabakh – the mountainous part of Artsakh (even some of its districts together with its lowland part were cut off from it in 1923 when the Autonomous Oblast of NK was formed, which was renamed NKAO in 1936) to Soviet Azerbaijan [57, с. 13; 58, pp. 19-20]. The leadership of Azerbaijan SSR systematically violated the rights and interests of the Armenians of NKAO in social-economic, political, demographic and cultural spheres.
47 In 1988-1990, in response to the legal self-determination demand of the Armenian population of NKAO, the Baku authorities committed genocidal actions in Sumgait, Gandzak (Kirovabad), Baku and other places and forced deportation of Armenians from there. On September 2, 1991 the Artsakh Armenians proclaimed the formation of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and on December 10 legally declared the establishment of the NKR by plebiscite. On December 28 the new-formed NKR Supreme Council adopted a Declaration of Independence. The Azerbaijani authorities launched large scale military aggression against Artsakh, but were utterly defeated. Armenian liberating forces had been moving in eastern direction to the natural historic border of Armenia along the Kura. Aggressive Azerbaijani leadership was in panic. Russia’s top negotiator Vladimir Kazimirov later confessed: “In the spring of 1994 the fierce fighting at Terter, north of [the NKR capital] Stepanakert, threatened with a new disaster [for Azerbaijan]: the Armenians’ exit to the Kura river would have cut off Azerbaijan’s north-western projection – Baku wasn’t even putting forward preconditions and was ready for a long-term truce.” (http://forum.hyeclub.com/showthread.php/19509-Shoushi-Victory; http://hetq.am/eng/print/10140/). In May, 1994 was signed a ceasefire. Armenian freedom-fighters liberated several regions of Artsakh, but Azerbaijani army regiments occupied Shahumyan region and Getashen sub-region, and the eastern parts of Martakert and Martuni regions of the NKR. Currently the ceasefire is regularly violated by the defeated aggressive Azerbaijan’s snipers and raiding bands, which are repulsed by Armenian border troops.
48 Falsely interpreting historic data [without considering the real causes of the Armenian Genocide, territorial reparations (Western Armenia and Cilician Armenia), as well as the self-determination of the Artsakh Armenians], Özkan presented historical and present-day facts in a distorted form [55, p. 585], in line with the Turkish-Azerbaijani propaganda.
49 He wrote: “When the Soviet Azerbaijan was established, the people of the republic were called Turks. During the Stalin era in 1937, this was changed to Azerbaijani, which included Kurds, Talishs and other ethnic groups, to underline the geographic characteristic of nationhood” [55, p. 588].
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