Turkey has brought out a diplomatical mark to France over its move to include the so-called “Armenian genocide” in history and geographics books used in French secondary schools.
Turkey’s Embassy in Paris brought out a diplomatical note to the French Foreign Ministry along with the French Education Ministry for protestation of the inclusion of two-page section into French textbooks that detail mass killings of Armenians in 1915 with what the embassy said “fake documents.”
Relations between Paris and Ankara had started to thaw after a decision in February by France’s constitutional courtroom to cancel the genocide denial law as contrary to free speech. But the ties of the 2 countries could see the winter again as new President Francois Hollande told in July that he will stand by a campaign pledge to make it illegal to refuse that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 was genocide.
Turkey had invalidated all economical, political and military meetings with France in December after the French parliament voted in favor of the draft law. At a joint news conference early in July, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius stated the law was improbable to be resurrected and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu acclaimed the opening of a warmer phase in relations with France.
Armenia, supported by a lot of historians, tells that about 1.5 million Armenians were killed in what is now eastern Turkey during World War I in a deliberate policy of genocide ordered by the Ottoman government.
Turkey tells there was heavy loss of life on both sides during the fighting, in which Armenian partisans affirmed invading Russian forces. The Ottoman Empire collapsed after the war. Successive Turkish governments and the absolute majority of Turks feel the charge of genocide is an insult to their nation.
Turkey desired Hollande’s election may mean France is more open to its joining the European Union than under his conservative predecessor Sarkozy, but has so far got no public back up for its European Union bid from Paris.
Ankara called for the French authorities in the letters to revise allegedly scientific data supplied in the textbooks. The letters also criticized telegrams allegedly sent by then Ottoman minister Talat Pasha that bear witness the mass killings of Armenians have been done in a systematic and deliberate way. The embassy told the telegraphs are fake.
The letters also took note that the section in the French textbook inflames hatred between the 2 nations.
Chairman of the Turkish Parliament’s powerful education committee Navi Avcı stated that the corrosion of French culture and moving to the radical right in French politics that began with [former president Nicolas] Sarkozy continues to have a negative affect on the French education system. “I just hope that sensible French intellects will arouse their voices against this sort of provocative move that will plant seeds of hate into minds of young people in France,” he added up.
The embassy also attached a detailed historical report on the 1915 events in its letter to the French Education Ministry. It claimed that 2 books issued by the Hachette and Hatier publishing houses include fake historical documents and Armenian activisits whose academic identity is unknown.
Paris Embassy accented in the letters that French citizens of Turkish descent will be negatively impacted by the inclusion of the section.
The section in French textbook applies Aram Andonian’s, an ethnic Armenian from İstanbul, “The Memoirs of Naim Bey: Turkish Official Documents Relating to the Deportation and the Massacres of Armenians,” book, which is also acknowledged as the “Talat Pasha telegrams” and issued in 1920.
Andonian is an exiled Armenian, who was, according to his memoirs, assissted by Naim Bey in Aleppo to release telegrams of Talat Pasha, in which the Ottoman minister issued that proves the authenticity of the so-called Armenian genocide.
Prominent historians Eric Jan Zurcher, Andrew Mango and Guenther Lewy downplayed evidence provided in the book while an in-depth research by Şinasi Orel and Süreyya Yuca in 1986 revealed that the book has many fallacies and inconsistencies. They also could not find any traces of Naim Bey in Aleppo archives and claimed that Andonian might have constructed that man.
