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TURKEY DESCRIBES ANZAC ACCOUNTS OF GENOCIDE AS 'FABRICATIONS'
ABC Transcripts (Australia)
SHOW: PM 7:13 PM AEST ABC
August 21, 2013 Wednesday
REPORTERS: Michael Brissenden
MARK COLVIN: The Turkish government is using the centenary celebrations
at Gallipoli to try to shut down criticism of the Armenian genocide.
Turkey's threatened to ban outspoken politicians from the commemoration
in Turkey in 2015.
In May this year the New South Wales parliament passed a motion
recognising the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides at the hands
of the Ottoman Turk regime.
Turkey's Consul General in New South Wales says the parliament is
hijacking the special bond that exists between the two countries.
He describes eyewitness accounts of atrocities at the time by ANZAC
(Australian New Zealand Army Corps) prisoners of war as fabrications.
This special report from our defence correspondent Michael Brissenden.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Mythology that now surrounds ANZAC has become
all consuming and as we prepare for the centenary of the Gallipoli
landing's in 2015 some fear the legend and the centenary Gallipoli
industry that's sprung up around it may obscure another important
commemoration.
By the time the First World War came around the hatred and animosity
between the Muslims and the Christians in the region knows as Anatolia
was thousands of years old.
But just days before the Gallipoli landing, and 30 years before the
term genocide was even coined, the Ottoman's, in the dying days of
empire, began instigating a final solution.
Colin Tatz is a world renowned genocide scholar.
COLIN TATZ: There is categorical evidence from scholarship around
the world that what happened between 1915 and 1922 was a genocide
of the Armenians, the Pontian Greeks and the Assyrian communities,
to the extent of roughly one half of their total population
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: According to most estimates more 1.5 million
Armenians, Pontian Greeks and Assyrian's were wiped out in mass
evacuations, forced marches and executions. But describing what
happened as a genocide has been vigorously and consistently opposed
by the Turks as a one-sided view of history. And the modern Turkish
state has lobbied hard to prevent any official recognition of the
term genocide.
It's a campaign that's been remarkably effective; only 21 countries
have passed resolutions to that effect. The British and the US
governments haven't and neither has the Australian Federal Parliament.
But the South Australian parliament has, and in May this year the New
South Wales parliament unanimously endorsed a motion put forward by
the Upper House member and Christian campaigner Fred Nile to formally
recognise what's widely referred to as the Armenian genocide.
FRED NILE: And in fact it's interesting, when Adolf Hitler planned
to have the genocide of the Jews there were some questions asked;
and he said himself don't worry who remembers the Armenian genocide -
who remembers it? He said that.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Fred Nile has just returned from a tour of Armenia
with a cross-party delegation
FRED NILE: The fact that I moved that motion and the parliament voted
for it, has made us heroes of Armenia.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But the response from the Turks has been
blistering.
GULSEREN CELIK: These people want to hijack this very special bond
between the Turkish-ANZAC spirit. This is their target.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Gulseren Celik is the Turkish Consul General
in Sydney. She has written a lengthy and angry response to the New
South Wales parliament motions condemning what she describes as the
baseless allegations of genocide.
And the Turkish state has hit back hard too. A foreign ministry
statement says the proponents of this motion will no longer be welcome
at the Gallipoli commemorations. And the local Gallipoli council has
also made it clear that critics will not be welcome to the centenary
celebrations in 2015.
So the Premier and members of the parliament will not be welcome at
the 2015 celebrations?
GULSEREN CELIK: Well I think one should read the press statement of
our ministry carefully.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Well the press statement says they won't be
welcome. So one would assume they won't be given the visas to go?
GULSEREN CELIK: Yes.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In her letter to the New South Wales parliament
the Turkish consul general has also dismissed the other significant
Australian link to the Armenian genocide, the evidence of Australian
POWs (Prisoners of War) who were at the time imprisoned in Armenian
churches and villages that had been emptied of residents.
Some describe seeing Turkish soldiers using whips to hurt Armenian
women and children on to sheep trailers on trains. Others, including
Thomas White, who later became a politician and minister in the Lyons
government, describes passing columns of Armenians being marched
through the desert to certain death. He writes "of roads littered
with dead bodies".
The Turkish consul general says these reports are fabrications.
MARK COLVIN: Michael Brissenden.
ABC Transcripts (Australia)
SHOW: PM 7:13 PM AEST ABC
August 21, 2013 Wednesday
REPORTERS: Michael Brissenden
MARK COLVIN: The Turkish government is using the centenary celebrations
at Gallipoli to try to shut down criticism of the Armenian genocide.
Turkey's threatened to ban outspoken politicians from the commemoration
in Turkey in 2015.
In May this year the New South Wales parliament passed a motion
recognising the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides at the hands
of the Ottoman Turk regime.
Turkey's Consul General in New South Wales says the parliament is
hijacking the special bond that exists between the two countries.
He describes eyewitness accounts of atrocities at the time by ANZAC
(Australian New Zealand Army Corps) prisoners of war as fabrications.
This special report from our defence correspondent Michael Brissenden.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Mythology that now surrounds ANZAC has become
all consuming and as we prepare for the centenary of the Gallipoli
landing's in 2015 some fear the legend and the centenary Gallipoli
industry that's sprung up around it may obscure another important
commemoration.
By the time the First World War came around the hatred and animosity
between the Muslims and the Christians in the region knows as Anatolia
was thousands of years old.
But just days before the Gallipoli landing, and 30 years before the
term genocide was even coined, the Ottoman's, in the dying days of
empire, began instigating a final solution.
Colin Tatz is a world renowned genocide scholar.
COLIN TATZ: There is categorical evidence from scholarship around
the world that what happened between 1915 and 1922 was a genocide
of the Armenians, the Pontian Greeks and the Assyrian communities,
to the extent of roughly one half of their total population
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: According to most estimates more 1.5 million
Armenians, Pontian Greeks and Assyrian's were wiped out in mass
evacuations, forced marches and executions. But describing what
happened as a genocide has been vigorously and consistently opposed
by the Turks as a one-sided view of history. And the modern Turkish
state has lobbied hard to prevent any official recognition of the
term genocide.
It's a campaign that's been remarkably effective; only 21 countries
have passed resolutions to that effect. The British and the US
governments haven't and neither has the Australian Federal Parliament.
But the South Australian parliament has, and in May this year the New
South Wales parliament unanimously endorsed a motion put forward by
the Upper House member and Christian campaigner Fred Nile to formally
recognise what's widely referred to as the Armenian genocide.
FRED NILE: And in fact it's interesting, when Adolf Hitler planned
to have the genocide of the Jews there were some questions asked;
and he said himself don't worry who remembers the Armenian genocide -
who remembers it? He said that.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Fred Nile has just returned from a tour of Armenia
with a cross-party delegation
FRED NILE: The fact that I moved that motion and the parliament voted
for it, has made us heroes of Armenia.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But the response from the Turks has been
blistering.
GULSEREN CELIK: These people want to hijack this very special bond
between the Turkish-ANZAC spirit. This is their target.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Gulseren Celik is the Turkish Consul General
in Sydney. She has written a lengthy and angry response to the New
South Wales parliament motions condemning what she describes as the
baseless allegations of genocide.
And the Turkish state has hit back hard too. A foreign ministry
statement says the proponents of this motion will no longer be welcome
at the Gallipoli commemorations. And the local Gallipoli council has
also made it clear that critics will not be welcome to the centenary
celebrations in 2015.
So the Premier and members of the parliament will not be welcome at
the 2015 celebrations?
GULSEREN CELIK: Well I think one should read the press statement of
our ministry carefully.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Well the press statement says they won't be
welcome. So one would assume they won't be given the visas to go?
GULSEREN CELIK: Yes.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In her letter to the New South Wales parliament
the Turkish consul general has also dismissed the other significant
Australian link to the Armenian genocide, the evidence of Australian
POWs (Prisoners of War) who were at the time imprisoned in Armenian
churches and villages that had been emptied of residents.
Some describe seeing Turkish soldiers using whips to hurt Armenian
women and children on to sheep trailers on trains. Others, including
Thomas White, who later became a politician and minister in the Lyons
government, describes passing columns of Armenians being marched
through the desert to certain death. He writes "of roads littered
with dead bodies".
The Turkish consul general says these reports are fabrications.
MARK COLVIN: Michael Brissenden.