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An Interview by “Le Monde” with Bernard Lewis By: Ayhan Ozer

December 30, 2011 By

Recently, the lower Chamber of the French National Assembly adopted a Resolution making the denial of the so-called “Armenian Genocide” a crime punishable by one year of jail term and 40,000 Euros.

This brings to mind an interview conducted in 1993 by the French daily Le Monde with the eminent Turkish and Middle East historian Bernard Lewis. In the aftermath of this interview Mr. Lewis was sued by the Armenian organizations in France on the grounds of denial the Armenian genocide, which the Armenians conveniently equate with the Jewish Holocaust. This preposterous court action yielded nothing. The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post criticized France in their editorials. I had translated this interview from French, and it was published in the Turkish Times. Below, are the segments of that interview that deal with the Armenian issue, and my Turkish Times article on this subject dated September 1995. The account of this episode from my file may serve as a historical background. I hope you will find it of interest. Please read on.     [Read more...]

Filed Under: Armenian Issue, Politics

E D I T O R I A L Senator Joe Biden, Quo Vadis? By: Ayhan Ozer

December 16, 2011 By
Senator Joe Biden

Senator Joe Biden

This Editorial was written for The Turkish Times in November 1989 as a reaction to Senator Biden’s anti-Turkish remarks on the subject of the Armenian Genocide saga. The SJR@ 212 was introduced to the Congress, and it was being debated at the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that session the then Senator Biden displayed a crude anti-Turkish posture. Recently, as a V.P. he visited Turkey, and against the backdrop of his past stance this visit sparked jittery comments in the internet. Although it has been about two weeks from that visit, I thought it may be useful to share this article with the community, so that we will refresh our memory about V.P. Biden’s records.

We read in the Turkish Times November 1989 issue the detail of the deliberations of the “Armenian Genocide Resolution SJR#212” in the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 11, 1989. The news item stated that the Committee Chairman Senator Joe Biden (D-Del) referred to the Turkish Nation using scornful epithets, and also he called “idiots” the 69 prominent History scholars in this country just because they repudiated the Armenian allegations, and made a public declaration in the New York Times and The Washington Post in 1985 to warn the U.S. Congress against the passage of a spurious Resolution manipulated by the Armenians to legislate a faulty history. These eminent historians constitute the main body of academia in this country in their field. Therefore, we leave it to the judgment of our readership as to who really deserves this characterization.   [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics

The Simit Vendor Rıza and Dersim (Tunçeli) Events, 1935 – 1938, Part 1

November 27, 2011 By

Even though İstanbul has hundreds and thousands of restaurants and cafes all around the city, the vendors that sell pohça and simit are still abundant, including in Kozyatagı, Kadıköy. As I was walking pass the cart full of Simit two days ago, I noticed that the vendor was reading a book, a rare picture. I stopped and after saying good morning,  I asked the vendor what he was reading. He smiled and showed me the cover of the book: The title was: ‘’Fuzuli – Hadikatü’s S-Sueda’’, by Şeyma Güngör, published by the Ministry of Culture, as part of a series as ‘’Source Books.’’ When I asked him, what the subject was, he said, ‘’The Kerbela,’’ the story of the murder of Hazreti Ali in the 7th century in a town now in Iraq, which is considered a sacred place for the Şiis and Alevis. When I told him that perhaps he should be reading books on ‘’Dersim,’’ the hotly debated issue of the day, he smiled again and said, I have been reading about Dersim for 35 years. I know all about it.’’

The vendor’s name was Rıza Balta, from Karakaya village, Sivas, but his parents were originally from Dersim. (A coincidence since the name of the Kurdish rebel was Seyit Rıza.) Since I was headed for the airport, I could not continue with the conversation but asked his permission to take his photograph. He said yes, shown in the Attachment, which I will make a copy and present to him and perhaps continue with our conversation, since he knew a lot about what had happened in Dersim many years ago. The subject has been hotly debated since the revelations, first by the former Deputy Onur Oymen on TV 10 Nov 2009 and again by CHP deputy,  Hüseyin Aygün,  ironically also on Nov 10, 2011, although he had given the interview to Zaman newspaper on Oct 31, prompting discussions on almost every tv channel and the publication of articles in many newspapers, which is still continuing. [Read more...]

Filed Under: History, Politics

Norway and the July 22, 2011 Bombing in Oslo and Massacre – A result of Anti – Muslim and Anti – Turkish Propaganda in the West over the centuries

August 21, 2011 By
Oslo bombing photo

Oslo bombing photo

The pictures from the month old tragedy shown on TV and the newspapers are still alive in our memories which will be remembered until eternity. The 32 year old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik set bombing at an office building in Oslo on July 22 where 8 Norwegians died and followed with the massacre of 69 innocent people on an island. Gizem Dogan, a 17 year old Turkish girl who was among the murdered youngsters was laid to Rest in Trodeim , Norway on Monday, August 1, 2011. Her funeral held at a park was attended by the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davuoglu and a member of the Turkish Parliament and many dignitaries and over 2,000 concerned people. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics

APRIL HAPPENINGS and PRESIDENT OBAMA’S WRONG MESSAGE ON APRIL 23, 2011

April 25, 2011 By

President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama

April 22 Earth Day and April 23 International Children’s Day Celebrations, April 25 Anzac Day Commemoration, and the sad and baseless April 24 Armenian Genocide Day Around the World

April 24, 2011

On April 22, New York City offered many colorful and fun Earth Day celebrations and people all over the world showed some love for their planet Earth and raised awareness to environmental concerns. Thousands of Turks from around Turkey continued on with their march to Ankara from every corner of beautiful Anatolia protesting the building of hundreds of hydroelectric power plants and other mega projects, which are destroying the valleys, the river beds and forests.

On April 23, the Turks and the members of the Turkish World and their friends celebrated the National Sovereignty and Children’s Day holiday, as they have done since 1920 when the Turkish Grand National Assembly was established, with close to a thousand young students from 40 countries who came to Turkey for the 33rd International Children’s day celebrations in Bursa, joining their hosts commemorating an event in a spectacular show of peace and friendship, unfortunately ignored by the western media.

On April 25, the Australians and the New Zealanders, known as the ANZACS, and others will travel to Gallipoli ,Turkey, to hold their annual commemoration and dawn services at the Anzac Cove, as they have done every year, and to celebrate the establishment of their states. As they pay their respects to their fallen comrades in 1915, they will read the message of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to the grand parents of the Anzac soldiers, engraved in the Turkish Memorial.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics

The Efforts over NGO’s and Media for the Acceptance of PKK Terrorist Organization as an Interlocutor – 21 July 2010

March 29, 2011 By
 

Sinan OĞAN

Sinan OĞAN

Special Army/Units Debate

We have been a country and a society busy with terrorism and separatism actively for 30 years and for the last two hundred years in various means. Insurgences in the Ottoman Empire and the separatist, ethnic terrorism that had started especially in the Balkans had taken many lives and the state had established a defense mechanism against these activities. The foundation of the Republic afterwards and the struggle of the young Republic with the following wars and insurgencies, let it to act with a motivation inherent form the Ottoman Empire. Afterwards, the attacks of the Armenian ASALA Terrorist Organization against Turkish diplomats had revealed the international feature of terrorism. Turkey had taken different methods for ASALA. In the 1980’s we observe the PKK terrorism stepping in after ASALA ceased the terrorist activities and faded away from the scene. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics

Cypriot Turks in ‘’Dawn Turn’’ and Bosnians Waiting for Their Identities in Their Graves – 20 July 2010

March 29, 2011 By
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) celebrated the 36th anniversary of 20th July 1974 Peace Operation which was a real landmark. The crowd, having gathered in the Yavuz Landing Beach the night before, waited the moment that brought peace to the island and freedom to Turks living in Cyprus 36 years before, with ‘’Dawn Turn’’. Even though sometimes different opinions about the time span following 20th July 1974 came up, all Cypriot Turks are like-minded about the fact that 20th July 1974 is an interference stopping the massacres. If the opinion had not been arranged and Greek Coup had been successful, without doubt the massacres in Murataga, Sandallar, Atlılar, Taskent villages would have happened in the whole island. Even Greece and Greek populated southern Cyprus can talk frankly about the day before 20th July 1974.
Greek Ta Nea newspaper analysed the time span before 20th July 1974 and said that Greece in the early 1950 set up EOKA organization in order to bind Cyprus to itself. This organization terrorized police stations, public sector and Turk villages in the island showing its aim as picking a civil war and pave the way for Athens’ interference. This statement of the newspaper was regarded righteously as ‘’ the confession came up after years’’. Greek Administration, believing that in order to make the whole world support the Greek Argument, it is important to convince firstly its own people, censors talking about the time before 1974 in front of the press. When the Greek Administration’ EU membership ceased the pressure, confessions related to the time between 1963-1974 increased. Andres Dimitrius, former EOKA B member, in his declaration published in Alithia newspaper on 22th November 2004, he confessed that Taskent massacre 30 years ago was made by Greek soldiers coming from Hirokitia village and they raped the women living in the region. Moreover, he used the statement ‘’ whatever we have done, we have done it with the legal force of the government.’’ Antonis Angastiniyotis who described the massacres in the three villages in his documentary named as ‘’Brutality to Cypriot Turks and The Other Side of The Coin’’, was marginalized in his own country. The documentary, in which it is told that 126 Turks were executed by shooting without making a distinction between women or children and buried in mass graves, was not telecasted on Greek TV channels.

Filed Under: Politics, Think Tanks

A Greek Tragedy and Greek Amnesia

March 29, 2011 By

A  Histoprical  Record – A Greek Tragedy And Greek Amnesia By: Ayhan Ozer

The Turkish-Greek friendship was conceived and realized in 1930s by Ataturk and the then Greek Prime Minister Venizelos to promote the mutual interests of the two countries in a spirit of cooperation and harmony. Later however, this legacy was abandoned by unscrupulous politicians in Greece, and an attitude of jingoism and belligerence towards Turkey have become currency for domestic consumption in the Greek politics.

 

Turkey, as a firm believer of regional cooperation and stability, has all along spent lopsided efforts to nurture and keep this increasingly fragile relationship alive. Yet, these one-sided efforts have been shy of reversing the downward trend that has besieged this relationship.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: History, Politics

Senator Ted Kennedy, the Kennedy Family, and Turkey

March 22, 2011 By
Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy

Senator Ted Kennedy died last week at the age of 77 after serving in the US Senate for 47 years. The memorial service for Senator Ted Kennedy at the Presidential Kennedy Library and Museum was broadcast in Turkey very early Saturday morning. It was more of a celebration than show of grievance. John and Caroline Kennedy spoke lovingly of their uncle who was most famous for arranging historical visits around America during the annual Kennedy family reunions, “share the love of being together” as echoed by his niece. Vice President Joe Biden said that, if it was not for Ted Kennedy, he would not be where he is today.

 

Joseph Kennedy, the head of the Kennedy family and the father of 9 children including Ted Kennedy, became famous when he was appointed as the US Ambassador to England and, taking advantage of the prohibition, exported Irish and British spirits to the US . After the lifting of the prohibition, Joseph Kennedy was the first one to establish liquor factories in the United States which made him a multi-millionaire.

 

Kennedy family and Turkey

 

Kennedy family, well known around the world as the non-crowned American royal family, was part of the Boston politics and always received the support of the large Armenian community in and around Boston . Even though John F. Kennedy’s name was given to an avenue in Turkey , I don’t recall any member of the Kennedy family ever visiting Turkey . They have always supported the false Armenian claims and voted for the mythical Armenian genocide resolutions. If only Ted Kennedy had arranged one of their family re-unions in Turkey and tried to learn the truth about the sad events that took place during the First World War, especially since one of his brothers was killed during the Second World War. I hope Carolyn Kennedy will complete this mission and come to Istanbul in 2010 when all of Europe and Turkey will be celebrating the crowning of Istanbul as the Culture Capital of Europe. Perhaps she will have a chance to learn that the Ottoman Sultan was the only European monarch which sent ship loads of grain to the starving Irish during the potato famine of 1830s.

 

Eulogy by President Obama and a Visitor to Istanbul from Great Britain

 

As I walked into the Lounge on the 9th floor of the Hilton Hotel last night, I saw a lady listening to President Obama on CNN with tears in her eyes. I sat next to her, trying to comfort her which also gave me a chance to talk to her about the Kennedy family.  She knew all about the Kennedys but was surprised to learn that no Kennedy had ever visited Turkey which she said was a lovely country. When I told her the unjust support that the Kennedy family members gave to the Armenians without knowing the real truth, all she said was, “I did not know that.”

 

President Obama is fighting the opponents to his Health care plan which was also championed by Ted Kennedy and some are suggesting to attach his name o the bill., including the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Perhaps, it would be fitting to call it the “Kennedy Health Care Plan” if it would help the passage.

 

Yuksel Oktay , PE

30 August 2009

Filed Under: Politics

NABUCCO GAS PIPELINE, The Project of the Century, if Realized, and TURKEY’s Role in its Success as the Trans European Gas Pipeline

March 22, 2011 By

The Nabucco project, under discussion for almost 7 years since 2002 and with an expected completion date sometime in 2014, recently passed a milestone. Following years of studies, meetings, negotiations, an intergovernmental agreement on the natural gas pipeline was finally signed in Ankara on July 13, 2009 in the presence of 7 heads of government and many officials of the countries which are members of the consortium, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. The German utility company located in Essen, RWE AG, also signed the agreement.

 

The 3,300 km steel conduit with 2,000 km in Turkey is expected to cost around 8.0 billion Euros (11.0 billion US dollars.)

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Economy, Politics
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