According to Demoyan, many of the Turkish visitors at the museum were students, sports fans, and NGO representatives. He said many of them visited the museum out of curiosity, with varying reactions to the exhibits, including sympathy, remorse, regret and denial.
The museum had earlier this month launched an exhibit chronicling the contributions of Armenians in Ottoman Sports. According to Demoyan this was the most popular exhibit frequented by the Turkish visitors, who were surprised to learn about the role of Armenians in the development of sports in the Ottoman Empire.According to him, many of the visitors said they had not known about the contributions of Armenians to Ottoman Sports. [Unzipped - see also my earlier post - Armenian sport life in the pre-WWI Ottoman Empire]
Meanwhile, the descendant of one of the three masterminds of the Armenian Genocide, Hasan Jemal, visited the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial on Saturday where he laid flowers in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
The grandson of Jemal Pasha, Hasan Jemal is a correspondent for the Turkish daily "Milliyet." Jemal wrote about his visit to Armenia in an article entitled, "Let's Respect Each Other's Pains."
*source: Armenpress (via accc.org.uk)
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Ok, lets respect each others pain, but where is the respect in asking Armenians to join in a committee and investigate the (what they call allegations of) Armenian Genocide? That’s not respect, that’s a slap in the face. Should we have relations with Turkey on an international basis, yes of course, but lets be clear about history and not play games with the ancestors of the first modern day genocide.
As for the Armenian government, their legitimacy is in question both domestically and internationally so what do they do to quell the international community? Well let me give you a hint, they are giving the idea that if they present themselves as the ones who are willing to have good relations with Turkey they in return will be granted international acceptance as the true governance of Armenia. And sadly it will work, all politics is domestic, and in this case, Europeans/international powers care more about having a stable caucus region (which goods can flow through freely, especially the commodity of oil) than the legitimate rights of the people. This is all hypocritical. Wasn’t it Serge who accused Levon of willing to sell out Artzakh? Now he is willing to sell out the Armenian Genocide, and might be even willing to consider Turkey as an honest broker in the Artzakh stalemate. What hypocrisy!!!!
Just got this and have translated very roughly. It seems the Turkish press is quoting Turkish sources that the formation of the commission on the Armenian Genocide will be announced in the next UN general assembly meeting.
This is from the SD Hunchak press center.
The board of the Social Democratic Party sent an open letter to the foreign minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandyan, which holds: “Mr. Minister, in some Turkish periodicals the information has been circulated recently that in the meeting of the UN GA on September 23 you and the Turkish foreign minister are going to announce about the creation of a conference of historians to study the Armenian Genocide. The first Armenian political party, the Social Democratic Henchak Party demands on behalf of thousands of our members and supporters from Uruguay to Syria, Australia to the United States, Egypt to Canada that you refute this treacherous information circulated in the Turkish press. Mr. Nalbandyan, we are convinced that you are aware of the heavy and disastrous consequences of this step for Armenia and the Armenians. Every Armenian who will ever doubt our grief, the Genocide, will get the curse and neglect of the generations. We demand publicly that you officially refute this information. And if there is such an initiative in reality, we set forth a demand full of fury to abstain from such a treacherous and unlawful step.”
This is a link to an English version of a Turkish press on it. http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/9919512.asp?scr=1
I wonder will the ARF be protesting on the streets of Armenia regarding this? Hypocrisy at its best.
Do we have any idea how many of those visitors were actually Turkish-Armenians?
Unfortunately, I could not find any such data (perhaps, due to sensitive nature of it), but based on what I heard and read I assume that there were quite a few Turkish citizens of Armenian origin among relatively small group of Turkish citizens who visited Yerevan for football match.
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