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Sarinay's Silence... The Story of a Turkish Denialist

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  • Sarinay's Silence... The Story of a Turkish Denialist

    Sarinay's Silence... The Story of a Turkish Denialist

    January 30, 2015
    By Ara Sarafian


    I have an interesting dilemma. A Turkish TV company based in Ankara
    has approached me for an interview concerning "the events of 1915."
    The programme editor let me know that Yusuf Sarinay - the former head
    of the Prime Ministry Ottoman State Archives - is his adviser. How
    should I respond?

    I believe Yusuf Sarinay is a denier of the Armenian Genocide.

    A few years ago I examined an article he wrote, "What Happened on
    April 24, 1915?" In that article he claimed that the Armenian
    intellectuals who were arrested in Constantinople on 24 April 1915 had
    posed a threat to the security of the Ottoman Empire and were
    imprisoned accordingly. These prisoners were sent to Chankiri and
    Ayash near modern-day Ankara.

    Sarinay took Ayash prisoners as his focus and argued that, apart from
    a handful of prisoners who were moved elsewhere, the remaining
    prisoners stayed in Ayash for the duration of the war and were
    released in 1918. Sarinay's argument was entirely based on Ottoman
    records in Turkey.

    I examined Sarinay's work, including the archival materials he claims
    to have seen, and found his presentation lacking. There were
    significant discrepancies in his work. The Armenian political
    prisoners who were sent to Ayash in 1915, even according to the
    Ottoman records, disappeared while in state custody. There are no
    letters and petitions sent to the authorities, nor other references
    attesting to their presence in Ayash, after the summer of 1915. Yet
    Sarinay argues that these men remained in Ayash prison until the end
    of WWI.

    I published my critique of Sarinay's work in the Turkish-Armenian
    newspaper, Agos. The article was printed in Turkish to facilitate a
    response from him. Sarinay never responded and proceeded to reprint
    his article in a book.

    I believe Sarinay chose not to respond because he was caught out and
    there was a lot at stake - both personally and institutionally. After
    all, he represented the Turkish establishment in the denial of the
    Armenian Genocide, and the issues at hand were not trivial. By all
    accounts, the Armenian prisoners who were sent to Ayash in 1915
    disappeared while in state custody - and Yusuf Sarinay presents a
    false picture when he argues otherwise.

    Sarinay has remained silent in face of criticism while others - such
    as the Turkish Foreign Ministry - have continued to circulate his work
    in their own denial of the Armenian Genocide.

    I can only wonder in what capacity Sarinay serves the Turkish TV
    company making a documentary "on the events of 1915."



    Historian Ara Sarafian is the founding director of the Gomidas
    Institute in London, which sponsors and carries out research and
    publishes books. Among the institute's publications are English
    translations of Armenian texts related to the Armenian Genocide. He
    edited a "Critical Edition" of the The Treatment of Armenians in the
    Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916, commonly known as the Blue Book (originally
    published in 1916 by British historians Lord James Bryce and Arnold
    Toynbee), as well as a Turkish edition of the book.


    http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/60701

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