ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, GREEK, ASSIRIANS AND OTHER PEOPLE IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE / vizantarm.am /
Edward Hovhannisyan
The genocide of various nations living in the Ottoman Empire is one of the hardest pages of the history of the Turkish people and their statehood. French publicist Henri Barbie, who visited Anatolia in 1916, writes in his travel notes: “Who is passing through Armenia now, cannot help but shudder, these endlessly given ruins and deaths speak so much. There is not a single tree, not a single cliff, not a single shred of moss, which would not have been defiled by streams of spilled blood. There is not a single river or river that would not carry hundreds of thousands of dead bodies to eternal oblivion. There is not a single precipice, not a single canyon that would not be open-air graves, in the depth of which the open piles of skeletons would not turn white, since almost nowhere did the murderers give themselves neither time nor labor to bury their victims. ”
Another testimony of the English historian, Herbert Adams Gibbons Ph.D.: “Even more monstrous was the program to evict civilians in Mesopotamia. There were no exceptions for patients or pregnant women. It was not allowed to take anything with you. And these unfortunate people under the scorching sun had to go on foot for 5-6 weeks. Old men, sick and children fell down the road and no longer got up. Women who were in prenatal fights, lashes forced to move forward. And when childbirth occurred on the move, the bloody woman with the stillborn child was left to die in the dust. Which of these people could have committed suicide. Distracted mothers hit their babies on the ground to save them from suffering. Hundreds of thousands of women and children died on the road from hunger and thirst. ”
This is the fate of all those whom the rulers of the Ottoman Empire decided for political reasons to either destroy or evict from their own empire, which by historical right belonged to the peoples being destroyed.
Could all this be missing? In other words, was it possible to avoid genocide? Are the people themselves who were subjected to genocide to blame for the genocide? These questions always arise where the naive view still reigns that the genocide was associated with the form of behavior of Armenians, Greeks, Macedonians, Pontians, Assyrians, Kurds and other peoples, from which the Turks decided to get rid of. Supposedly, if these peoples were more modest, more humble, more devoted, and if they did not take up arms, there would be no genocides. In other words, these nations are to blame for the hatred of the people subjected to genocide.
But in reality, the bearer of the genocide of all national minorities of the Ottoman Empire was exclusively the Turkish side. The genocide was politically determined regardless of the form of behavior of the victims. And blaming the victims for something would be tantamount to blaming Iraq today for being guilty of US aggression. The genocide of the peoples of the Ottoman Empire could not be prevented, because it is an integral part of the Turkish political culture. In order to verify this, we turn to a table reflecting the chronology of genocides organized by the Turkish authorities under its various rulers. Under these pogroms, it was killed:
1822 on the island of Hnos – 50 000 Greeks
1823 in Misolungy – 8,750 Greeks
1826 in Constantinople – 25,000 Janissaries
1850 in Mosul – 10,000 Isor
1860 in Lebanon – 12,000 Maronites
1876 in Bulgaria – 14,700 Bulgarians
1894 in Sassoun – 12,000 Armenians
1896 in Western Armenia – 300,000 Armenians
1896 in Constantinople and near Van – 17,570 Armenians
1903-1904 in Macedonia – 14,667 Macedonians
1904 in Adana – 30,000 Armenians
1915 in Western Armenia 1,500,000 Armenians
1918 in Kars, Ardahan and around Alexandropol – 100,000 Armenians
1919 in Cilicia – 50,000 Armenians
1922 in Smyrna – 200,000 Armenians and Greeks
1917-1925 in Turkey – 2,000,000 Kurds killed and evicted.
Unfortunately, each of the nations subjected to genocide, eviction and persecution dealt with their problems on their own, firstly, proving that they really were persecuted and exterminated, secondly, that these persecutions were unjust and contradicted the principles of civilization and progress, and Thirdly, he demanded recognition and condemnation of the genocide against his people. Then it seemed to all of us that each of the genocides is an independent political problem that needs to be solved independently, not mixing it with other violence against other nations. Moreover, the Institute of Armenian Problems considered that violence against Armenians under Abdul Hamid, under the Young Turks, under Kemal Atatürk, and even more so in Sumgait should not be confused with each other, because such a jumble can divert public opinion from a specific problem and focus public attention on anti-Turkish moods, without a specific understanding of these moods.
But on April 17, 2000, a great friend of the Armenian and all the persecuted peoples, Dr. Tessa Hoffman from Berlin, sent the following correspondence about appealing to the Bundestag regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, which was discussed at a press conference and for the first time touched upon the joint actions of various peoples. In correspondence T. Hoffman said:
At their joint press conference held on April 17, 2000, the “Recognition Working Group” and the “Society of Genocide Opponents” announced that both organizations had sent petitions to the relevant Bundestag committee proposing to German lawmakers to condemn the Genocide 1.5 million. Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and to urge the government and parliament of the Republic of Turkey to recognize the fact of the Genocide, which official Turkey has denied to this day.
In this context, the petitioners recalled the 1987 resolution of the European Parliament, in which recognition of the Armenian Genocide was made one of the preconditions for Turkey’s accession to the EU. In their appeal to the deputies of the German parliament, the petitioners explained: “By persuading the Turkish parliament to recognize the Armenian Genocide, you will at the same time support the democratization process in Turkey, as well as those Turkish citizens who are still persecuted in their homeland if they try to study the past from an objective point of view. ”
The petition “The time has come – the Genocide must be condemned”, written by the “Recognition Working Group”, stresses that the Armenian Genocide was the culmination of the nationalist program of the cultivation of Asia Minor. Not only Armenians, but also the Greeks, Aramaeans and Assyrians became victims of persecution, deportation and massacre in the period from 1914 to 1923. As a result, only 150 thousand Christians are left in today’s Turkey, while in 1914 the total number of Christians in the Ottoman Empire was almost 5 million.
The “Recognition Working Group” is an association of the Central Council of Armenians in Germany, the Institute of Armenian Affairs, the Information and Documentation Center for Armenia and the coordination group “Armenia” – the Society for Persecuted People, a non-governmental human rights organization.
By the time of the press conference, about 2,500 people living in Germany or having German citizenship had signed a petition, including Turks, Kurds, Aramaeans and Assyrians. Among the first, the petition was signed by the Human Rights Society of Turkey / Germany – TUDAY. Among the foreigners who supported the petition, we note the world-famous researchers of the Genocide and the Holocaust, for example, Professor Yehud Bauer from the International Institute of Holocaust Studies in Yad Vashem and Professor Israel Charni – Executive Director of the Holocaust and Genocide Institute in Jerusalem.
The Society of Genocide Opponents was founded in 1998 by Turkish citizens who settled in Germany. Their petition was addressed to the Great People’s Assembly of Turkey. “We demand an end to denial, threats and slander in the 21st century,” the authors write to Turkish parliamentarians, “that the Genocide be recognized as a historical fact and that Turkey stretches its hands as a sign of peace and reconciliation with these peoples. A sincere attempt at reparation will be regarded as the most effective guarantee of peace and friendship, as well as a significant contribution to the preservation of our human dignity. ”
After the Turkish parliament refused to accept the petition signed by more than 10 thousand Turkish citizens, the petitioners decided to send it to the parliament of the country in which they live and pay taxes. “Please convince your Turkish colleagues to deal with the past, because recognizing the past is extremely important for democratization in our country,” wrote the Society of Genocide Opponents in a letter to the Bundestag deputies.
Dr. Tessa Hofman, Berlin
Two years later, the movement “In one voice – against the Genocide” was created, which organized a number of information events, the final communiqué of which we present to the attention of readers.
FINAL COMMUNIQUE
INFORMATION AND CULTURAL EVENT
“ONE VOICE IS AGAINST GENOCIDE”
From April 26 to 28, in Berlin, under the slogan “One vote against genocide”, events were held dedicated to the destruction of more than five million Christians in the territory of the Ottoman Sultanate and the expulsion from their ancestral lands. On the basis of eyewitness accounts and the results of scientific analysis, the affected ethnic groups are charging:
n in the destruction of 2.1 million Armenians as a result of the massacre and “death marches” in the period 1915-1922, of which one and a half million – in the period 1915-1916.
n in extermination during slaughter and deportations from the original territories of their residence and in mass extermination of at least 750,000 Greeks in Eastern Thrace, Ionia, Cappadocia and Pontus during the period 1912-1922, of which only 353,000 Pontian Greeks from 1916 to 1922
n in the destruction of up to 500,000 Arameans / Assyrians during the massacre in the period 1914-1918, of which up to 100,000 are adherents of the Syrian-Orthodox Church.
The victims were mainly citizens of the Ottoman Empire, and the performers were the military regime of the nationalist Turkish Union and Progress Party (known as the Young Turks), as well as its ideological and political heir, the opposition government of Ankara, founded by Mustafa Kemal. Attempts to bring the perpetrators of mass extermination and those guilty of criminal deportations during the period 1919-1922 to national and international criminal responsibility did not lead to any results: the perpetrators remained practically unpunished. Thus, staged or sanctioned mass deportations and massacres became a negative precedent for allied victors in the First and Second World Wars. Instead of strengthening the security of national minorities and creating conditions for the equal coexistence of different ethnic groups, religions and cultures within the same state, they completed the work begun by the Young Turks: for example, with the acceptance of the victorious powers in the First World War, the Lausanne Convention (1923) occurred complete grazing of Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor. And again, already to the winners of the Second World War, the forced eviction and extermination of a total of two million became a good example for the subsequent expulsion of millions more.
The Republic of Turkey, based on the bones of the tortured Armenians, Greeks and Arameans / Assyrians, never distanced itself from the political instigators and perpetrators of the massacre of the Young Turks and did not strongly condemn their criminal acts. Moreover, many of the Young Turks, who were part of the “special organizations” created for the genocide, were awarded the highest government posts, and in Turkey they honor their memory to this day. The mono-ethnicization of Turkey started by the Young Turks is still ongoing. It manifested itself and continues to be manifested in the cultural and national-political repression of ethnic and religious differences. Racist slogans such as “Turkey to the Turks” can still be found on the cover of the most widely circulated newspaper in Turkey.
We, the organizers, are pleased that, despite the criminal repressions in Turkey, the Turkish intelligentsia, defenders of civil and human rights over the past ten years, have found the courage to violate historical and public taboos and recall the destruction of Christian ethnic groups. We are also filled with faith and hope that together with us they grieve and together with us oppose genocide and deportations.
On the other hand, it is painful to admit that the majority of the political and intellectual elite of Turkey still stubbornly denies historical facts and publicly welcomes the destruction of Christian ethnic groups and cultures in their homeland. It seems that such representatives of the higher circles are simply not capable of realizing how irreplaceable the loss was the eradication of the diversity of cultures. They are not able to recognize the political and social damage that the mono-ethnicization policy has also inflicted on Turkish society itself.
We, the organizers, emphasize that we are far from revenge and revenge. Nevertheless, for the reasons given below, we consider it unacceptable that the legislative and governmental circles and the Turkish public deny their involvement in the genocide:
n Effective genocide prevention requires a review of past history. The destruction of Christian ethnic groups in the period 1912-1922 is the worst crime of the 20th century, and therefore can be an example to follow.
n Condemnation of such crimes is an indispensable condition for improving Turkey’s relations with its Armenian and Greek neighbors and serves to stabilize peace in the Aegean region and the South Caucasus. The denial by the representatives of the government and the Turkish law of the commission of crimes continues to offend the memory of the victims and the dignity of their descendants, and therefore more resolutely than before should be condemned by the international community.
n The recognition or conviction of crimes against Christian ethnic groups is an indispensable condition for enhancing the security of national minorities and the national policy of the Republic of Turkey. Because only by recognizing and condemning previously committed crimes can future crimes be prevented. Thus, we demand that the government and legislative bodies of Turkey guarantee the protection and preservation of Christian cultural monuments on their territory.
n We hope that the legislature of the Federal Republic of Germany will recognize its responsibility towards the descendants of the affected Christian ethnic groups and support their desire to condemn the crimes committed in the years 1912-1922. This requirement is based on the fact that it was with their tacit consent in the name of the German-Turkish military alliance during the First World War that the Young Turks criminal policy was authorized and that the implementation of the economic plans of Germany used forced labor of Christian workers.
n We hope that the Federal Government and the state governments will support the initiatives of Armenians, Arameans / Assyrians, Greeks of Asia Minor, as well as Turks and Kurds, who contribute to the common cause of preserving the memory of tortured victims and studying genocide and deportations in scientific terms and from the perspective of human rights. In this regard, we propose a jointly developed information and working material in Turkish and Kurdish, suitable for use in schoolwork and for adult education.
Members of the organizing committee “In one voice”: The working group for the recognition of the massacre of the Greeks of Asia Minor (Pont, Cappadocia, Ionia) and Eastern Thrace; Armenian community of Berlin (registered society); Church Armenian Community of Berlin (registered society); Society of affected peoples. Coordination Group of Armenia; Information and Documentation Center of Armenia; Institute of the Armenian Question (registered society); Federation of Aramaic (Aysor) in Germany (registered society); Assyrian-Halkedon-Aisor Union (ASCU).
Berlin, April 28, 2002
This movement is gaining strength and, apparently, it is destined to be the initiator of the condemnation of the genocides of various peoples of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey.
For the Armenian public, cooperation in condemning the genocide of the Greeks of Pontos is of particular interest. The historical destinies of the Armenian people are closely intertwined with this country. It is enough to remember that the king of Pontic Cappadocia Mithridates VI concluded an agreement with the Armenian king Tigran the Great to fight against Rome, and to strengthen this treaty, the daughter of Mithridates VI Cleopatra and Tigran II entered into marriage. The daughter of the Pontic king became the queen of Great Armenia. And when Mithridates was defeated in the war with Rome in 89 BC and the Romans captured the entire territory of the Pontic state, Tigran II entered the war against Rome and with his help Mithridates regained his royal power. Moreover, Tigran II annexed the Cilician valley to Armenia, and the mountainous part of Cilicia passed on to his ally Pontian king Mithridates VI.
The common fate of our two peoples, unfortunately, turned out to be common also during the years of extermination of the national minorities of the Ottoman Empire.
A bit of history.
Seven churches, seven lamps of the Greek-Christian civilization went out.
The lands of Asia Minor, where the Greek civilization flourished for 3000 years, were occupied by invading foreign invaders-Turks.
The Turks attacked Asia Minor in two waves: at the end of the XI century, the Seljuks, and later, at the beginning of the XIII century, were ottomans.
Through atrocities — violence, genocide, and enforced cultivation — they conquered and occupied foreign lands to the present day, driving out and destroying their original owners — the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, and Arabs.
The Uigurs, a Turkish tribe from a group of Turkish-Mongols, settled in Turkestan by the 8th century, leaving their homeland, Mongolia. The Seljuks, a nomadic tribe of herders and one of the branches of the Uighur Turks, reached Persia and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where they began to serve as mercenaries among the Baghdad caliphs.
Thanks to communication with the advanced civilization of the Persians and Arabs, they enriched their meager vocabulary, borrowed Arabic script, and converted to Islam, remaining, however, warriors-nomads.
Their leader Alp Arslan (1063-1072), uniting various Seljuk tribes, invaded Armenia (1064), destroyed its capital, Ani, and, having conquered Georgia, invaded Byzantium. In 1071, in Manzikert, near the current Turkish-Persian border, he defeated the Byzantine emperor Diogenes and captured him. Taking advantage of the confusion that followed, the Seljuks captured most of the Byzantine provinces of Asia Minor, where no Turks had ever lived before. In this way, in this part of Asia Minor, on alien lands for themselves, the Seljuks created many emirates.
A short time later, the Byzantines and Crusaders ousted the conquering Turks of Asia Minor and disbanded the Emirates, all but one; The emirate was not abolished, the capital of which was the city of Iconium (now Konya), and which was called the Rumsky emirate, i.e. The country of the Romans, as it was officially called in the Greek Byzantine Empire – the successor of the Roman Empire.
The invasions of Genghis Khan (1167-1227) forced another Turkish (Turkic) tribe, headed by Suleiman Shah, to leave Turkestan and head west. This tribe attempted to settle in Asia Minor, but was expelled by Armenians and Kurds. Suleiman Shah was drowned at the crossing of the Euphrates and was buried there in a place that has since been called Türk-Mesarii, i.e. “Turk’s grave” is a name that in itself already proves that the Turks in this region were foreigners. Then this tribe moved on and settled in the Sultanate of Rumi as guardians of the frontiers.
The grandson of Suleiman, Osman (1259-1326) took away the Sultan title from the Seljuks and gave his name to the new state, which became known as the Ottoman.
The Ottoman leaders soon realized that, being only a small armed group of conquerors in a foreign country, it would be very difficult for them to hold in their hands the whole country they had conquered, much less continue to conquer new lands if they do not take special measures. And they began to apply methods previously unknown in world history.
The main measures taken by them were as follows:
a) They proclaimed their state “the state of Gazi”, i.e. a state leading a holy war against the infidels. Many adventurers began to flow from the Muslim world into the new state (note the translator: the word adventurers in French can also mean “adventurer”), ready to fight for the faith or to profit.
b) They adopted the inhuman method – the abduction of children. Forcibly taking away little boys from Christian families of enslaved peoples (Armenians, Greeks, and later Albanians, Bulgarians, and Serbs), they sent them to special military camps for upbringing. The children were told that they were sons of the sultan, and that if they died in battle, they would immediately go to heaven. In this way, they were turned into fanatical Turks, who, being soaked with the wild Turkish spirit, slaughtered people of their own race, without even knowing it. It was thanks to this New Army (the Janissaries) that the Turkish conquests were carried out.
c) They systematically massacred millions of the indigenous people of Asia Minor in order to change its ethnographic character (ethnographic picture). During the seven centuries of Turkish rule in Asia Minor, according to some estimates, they thus exterminated about 16-20 million Greeks, at least 2-3 million Armenians, hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Arabs.
ci)
In the twentieth century alone, they massacred about 1.5 million Armenians and 1 million Greeks.
This is how the Turks conquered Asia Minor, a foreign country for them, a country they continue to occupy, a country where Greek culture flourished for 2,000 years before the appearance of the first Turk there. This whole culture was destroyed by the Turks, who were unable to take advantage of its fruits (I did not translate the following sentence because of its obvious stupidity).
n the past, the Greek people twice contributed to “cultivating” their consumers: the Romans and the Franks were also conquerors, but they themselves were “conquered” by Greek culture and spiritual heritage. In order for the conquerors to benefit from a higher civilization, it is necessary that they already have the basics of a certain culture and a special talent for perception. The Turks did not possess either.
The Turks could not rightly rule the peoples they had conquered. Laws, as such, they did not exist. In the capital, the law was identified with the desires and absolutism of the Sultan. In the provinces, the law was replaced by the arbitrariness of the local Turkish ruler. The property, dignity and life of the indigenous people of the non-Turkish race were in the full disposition of any Turkish official. The only means that the Turks owned to keep the peoples of this multinational empire in submission was violence and slaughter, indiscriminate massacres, mostly innocent people. Anyone who was not a Turk was already considered guilty. The Turkish administration was especially hateful to the conquered peoples. The aspirations of these peoples as soon as possible to free themselves from this terrible power were natural and justified.
The Turks could not swallow up the various nationalities of their empire, they were not able to rule these peoples fairly, nor oppose them (compete) economically, because almost all trade was in the hands of the Greeks, Armenians and Jews. Turks were engaged only in extortion, robbery and massacre of their subjects. The consequence of all this was a series of revolutions for liberation from the Turkish yoke, which was preceded by the Greek revolution of 1821. As a result of these revolutions, several independent states were formed.
In 1908, the Young Tur revolution broke out, forcing the Sultan to adopt a constitution. This revolution was carried out by the army without the participation of the people. Despite the seeming liberalism of this legal revolution, the same centrifugal tendencies continued to develop as under sultan absolutism. The national minorities belonging to the peoples who managed to create their own independent states by that time, such as the Greeks, demanded the accession of the lands on which they lived to their free homeland. The peoples who failed to create an independent state, such as the Armenians and the Kurds, actively fought for the successful solution of this task.
To avoid the loss of those territories in which the majority of the population was of the non-Turkish race, and to create a mono-ethnic Turkish state, the Young Turks set themselves the goal of getting rid of the peoples of other nationalities. And such areas were Eastern Thrace, the western part of Asia Minor and Pont, where the Greeks constituted the majority, the eastern areas of Asia Minor, where the Armenians constituted the overwhelming majority, and the southeast areas, where the Kurdish population was almost 100%.
And then these so-called liberal and constitutional Young Turks resorted to a method already well known to them, which had been used by the sultans before them, namely to violence and slaughter, which in their cruelty and organization were carried out by them much more sophisticated than the sultan did. The beatings were planned in advance, and at the highest level. The London newspaper The Times, dated October 3, 1911, published a report on the work of the congress of the Young Union party, Unity and Progress, held in Thessaloniki. At this congress, it was decided to resort to “Ottomanization” (procuration) of all subjects of non-Turkish nationality, either inclining them to this or using weapons. ”
The Balkan wars of 1912-1913 became the first reason for the start of the persecutions: the deportations, robberies and murders began, which were organized by the authorities against the Greeks. After the wars ended, the persecutions not only did not stop, but also took such a scale and continued with such intensity that the Ecumenical Patriarchate was forced on May 25, 1914 to announce that the orthodox church was persecuted, and ordered, as a sign of mourning and protest violence against the Greeks, to close all churches and schools that were under his (Patriarchate) jurisdiction.
The Turks used the beginning of the First World War as another convenient reason for the unmistakably calculated and organized massacre of national minorities in order to transform their multinational empire into a mono-ethnic state.
The abuse, deportation and massacre of the inhabitants of Eastern Thrace, Ponta and Asia Minor were organized by the top leadership of the Young Tur movement, members of the government and the high command of the Turkish army. Talaat Pasha, the Minister of the Interior, distinguished himself with special zeal. These sinister plans were carried out by the hands of Turkish soldiers and most of the Turkish population. They started with the genocide of Armenians, who did not have their own independent state that could protect them. Greeks throughout Turkey were subjected to these terrible atrocities – looting, deportation and massacre. 2.5 million people became victims of this period, 1.5 million of whom were Armenians.
Data on the crimes we have in the chronological table.
After the end of World War I, the allied states recognized that the property, dignity and life of the Greek nationals of the Ottoman Empire could not be protected by the government of this country, and therefore ordered Greece to occupy eastern Thrace and the region of Smyrna to free the people of these areas from Turkish tyranny its – Greek. This prescription was formalized and signed by the International Treaty of Sevres. At the same time, an independent state of Pont was created.
The chairman of the Supreme Council of the Allied countries, Alexander Milleran, in 1920, said: “The Turkish government not only violated its duty to protect its non-Turkish nationals; there is ample evidence that it itself took upon itself the leadership and organization of these most cruel acts committed against the inhabitants, whom it was obliged to protect. For this reason, the allied countries decided to rid all the territories where the majority of the population is not Turkish from the Turkish yoke. ”
The Treaty of Sevres was also signed by the official Turkish government, but Mustafa Kemal refused to recognize him. Supported by some foreign powers, he launched a war against Greece. The war lasted 40 months and ended with the defeat of the Greeks. On September 8, 1922, the Turks entered Smyrna, where refugees from other parts of Asia Minor flew. They set fire to the city of “Gyaur Izmir” (as the Turks called this Greek city Smyrna), and then began the massacre of the Greeks and Armenians, who did not manage to leave for a free Greece. Much has been written about the horrific scenes of the massacre. The embankment and the sea near Smyrna were red with blood. Bishop Chrysostomos was tortured and killed. Neither the old men, nor the women, nor the children escaped the Turkish yatagan. No description of these cruelties can convey the real picture of what happened. The American consul in Smyrna, George Horton, in his book “The Blight of Asia” (edition of Bobbs and Merryl, Indianapolis, 1925), tries to give an impartial description of the terrible crimes of the Turks: “… crimes that cause a horror and aversion in any civilized person”
Only for the period from 1913 to 1922. more than 600,000 Greeks of Asia Minor became victims of these crimes.
According to the Treaty of Lausanne, which put an end to this war, 300,000 Turks from Greece were exchanged for 1,400,000 Greeks of Asia Minor and East Thracian, who, having avoided a massacre and survived, were forced, against their will, to leave their native land on which their ancestors lived for 4000 years, and move to the other side of the Aegean Sea – to free Greece. The current Turkish state is the result of crimes. It was built by massacre, deportation and forcible resettlement of peoples. This is a criminal state.
Georges Clemenceau (Chairman of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919-1920), Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Allied Countries, said on June 25, 1919: “There is not a single case, either in Europe or in Asia or Africa, to establish Turkish domination over which – the country would not lead to a decrease in material well-being and a decline in culture; there is also no case that getting rid of Turkish domination would not lead to economic growth and the rise of culture. Whether it is a Christian or a Mohammedan country, wherever the conquering Turks come, they everywhere suffered destruction. They have never been able to peacefully develop what they have won with weapons. ”
The American newspaper “New York Times” wrote on 09/21/1979: “According to the latest statistics, the Christian population of Turkey from 4,500,000 decreased to 150,000 by the beginning of our century. There are no more than 7,000 Greeks left, as in 1923 there were 1.2 million.
ORIGINE SOURSES- vizantarm.am/page.php?65
