Turkey sends Israel Message of Condolence

13 April - In response to the recent suicide attacks, Turkey has strongly condemned these acts of terrorism and conveyed its condolences to Israel. The statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said " We strongly condemn the acts of terrorism which have been committed on April 10th near Haifa and more recently near Jerusalem in which many innocent people have been killed and many more wounded and would like to express our condolences to the People and Government of Israel."

In the statement, it was pointed out that the fact that the recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem was carried out during the visit of the United States Secretary of State Colin Powell in conjunction with international peace efforts openly displayed that these crimes were committed to serve to purposes of those opposing peace. It was also stated that: "Turkey demands that these suicide attacks which do not serve the Palestinian cause be stopped immediately, that a ceasefire be declared, that Israel withdraw from the regions it has recently occupied and that the two sides immediately return to the negotiating table."

When Hitler was asked about his plan to exterminate the Jews, fearing a world backlash and outrage, he replied "Who now remembers the Armenians?" Sadly, he was right, but he turned out to be wrong about the world not remembering the Jews.

I'm sorry to tell you this, but the Ottoman Turks were ethnic cleansers. The government, run by the Young Turks as they were called, envisioned an all Turkish country and the Armenian Christians living there stood in the way of that dream. Why was there such a huge number of Armenian refugees to this country at the time? Coincidence? They were fleeing genocide. Not just my grandparents but all my relatives on my father's side either fled or were killed in the death march. Try reading "Forgotten Fire" by Bagdazarian. It was based on the author's uncle's experience but is very similar to my grandmother's story.

"Who now remembers the Armenians?"

It is said that Hitler said this, but where is the proof of it? We have searched for some concrete proof in writing from that period, but even the UN has been unable to produce it..

The government of Turkey recognizes that there were wide spread massacres of Armenians in the eastern Ottoman Empire during the 1st World War. Yet it cannot see proof of these massacres being organized by the Ottoman state, nor that these were carried out with the greater goal of genocide, nor that these were carried out by Ottoman army regulars. There also are questions as to the number of people who lived there at that period of time, and the number who have perished there. Some suggest that more people died than actually live there, for example.

So it's a mess, but I believe that what is most important is that we, you and I, can once again be brothers and work this thing out in friendship. The Armenians living in Istanbul can help you and me find that friendship by example.

You are right about ethnic cleansing but to describe the events of those times as genocide is completely wrong. The aim was not to kill or expell all Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. They were moved to another region in the Empire where they could not harm the Ottoman Army trying to defend 'our' [that means Turks, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Assyrians, etc.] country and would not be harmed the mostly Kurdish gangs that were attacking them. The problem is that there was no way that the Ottomans could have restored order in the region. The Armenians had vowed to help the Russian Armies trying to invade 'their' country and had thus commited an act of treachery in a time of war. When 250,000 loyal Ottomans were giving their lives to defend Gallipoli, the Eastern front was being lost because of Armenian treachery. This, by the way, is not a justification for the deaths of so many people which almost did not have a state they could remain loyal to anyway. The Russians and the Fench were offering them a state of their own. The Ottoman Empire was almost at a point of collapse, government services had all but diminished, the treasury was bankrupt and poverty was a way of life due to years of wars and internal turmoil. Poverty and lack of central government authority had left all citizens of empire, regardsless of race or religion, at the hands of corrupt local officials which answered virtually to noone but themselves as they could bribe themselves out of any problems with Istanbul anyway. In fact even the Turks were not at all happy about the state of the country and the military had revolted against and replaced the Sultan in the 1908 revolution after which Monarchy was declared.

Assuming that about 600,000-900,000 people (most of which I am sure had nothing to do with the events) were expelled from their homes at a time when even the Ottoman Army had off-combat casualty rates of more than 25%, the number of casualites among them must have been in the tens if not hundreds of thousands.

War is hell and people die. There is no point in trying to keep the suffering of the past alive. We Turks have also suffered greatly at the hands of Christians but have chosen to bury our grief and look to the future. Our nations share so many common cultural and even racial properties as well as a common history of harmonious coexistence dating back to more than a thousand years. To try to build our furure relationship upon this common history and leave our sorrows behind is what becomes cilized people.

As the religious leaders all said the day before in Istanbul, all wars are for power and money. Religion is just used as a excuse for the greed of people in power. The same thing is valid for Turkey's bid for the EU. Some European countries are not willing to share their power with a country of 70 million with the youngest population and therefore the greatest potential in Europe. The point is that Europe needs us more than we need them. Europe is constantly aging and their youth are degerating rapidly into parasites on social support from the government. People are not willing to work as hard as they did after the World Wars and it will be inpossible for Europe to continue its upward growth trend with its current population. The problem comes here. We have a huge number of talented and well educated people willing to work long hours to succeed. Engineering and management are the most popular professions in this country in which one must study for years to be able to beat an annual 1.5 million equally hard working high school students wanting to go to a limited number of good universities. The University Entrance Exam system handles that very objectively and all universities whether private or state-owned must do their admission through the Student Selection and Placement Center which is an independent government body that uses only exam scores and school selections to place students. Good universities only accept the creme-de-la-creme of these 1.5 million people and how much or how little money you have has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you will be admitted. In fact, not having the money to go to a good school is an advantage in the scoring system. A number of good private universities also offer full scholarships to students with good scores in the university exams that have selected them and these scholarships are financed by the paying rich kids.

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