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Reflections on the Los Angeles World Affairs Council Round Table
Luncheon. ***
Los Angeles World Affairs Council*
Members of our Board of Directors and International Circle are
cordially invited to a Round Table Luncheon with
His Excellency GÜNDÜZ S. AKTAN,
Former Turkish Ambassador to Japan and Greece.
His Excellency
ÖMER ENGIN LÜTEM,
Former Turkish Ambassador to the Vatican;
Director, Armenian Research Institute
Monday, March 27, 2006, 11:45 a.m.
The California Club
TURKS AND ARMENIANS: IS RECONCILIATION POSSIBLE?
Turkey's entry into the European Union, for which talks began last
October, may be eased by support from an unlikely source: Armenia,
where the Turkish bid has met with a cautious welcome. In fact, over
the past few years, a number of moves on both sides have indicated a
melting in the long diplomatic freeze between Turkey and Armenia. Yet
both countries retain echoes of the Ottoman dynasty that survived for
600 years and whose dominions extended from the Danube through the
Levant to Algiers. And they share a mutual history, including
Armenian claims of Genocide at the hands of the Ottomans in 1915 and
continuing up through the present time, to the sealed Turkish-
Armenian border and the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
To discuss the future of Turkish-Armenian relations, we are pleased
to present the views of two Turkish diplomats and scholars: Gündüz
Aktan and Ömer Engin Lütem.
Gündüz Aktan, a career diplomat, served as Turkey's ambassador to
Japan and Greece, after spending his early career in Paris, Nairobi,
and New York. From 1985 to 1988 he was an advisor to late Turkish
Prime Minister Turgut Özal, and later assisted in the writing of Mr.
Özal's book, The Turks in Europe. He has been a member of the Turco-
Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC), and has written on
Armenian issues and international law.
Ambassador Ömer Engin Lütem began his diplomatic career in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1957, serving in Turkish missions in
France, Germany, Italy and Libya. He served as General Director of
Intelligence and Research and was later appointed Turkish Ambassador
to Bulgaria. He went on to serve as Turkish Ambassador to the
Vatican, and as the Turkish Permanent Representative to UNESCO. He
is now the Director of the Armenian Research Institute.
Please join us for a unique opportunity to hear Turkish perspectives
on one of the most persistent of Europe's dilemmas, the relationship
between Turkey and Armenia.
The above luncheon was an event scheduled during a two-week tour in
the United States of the two ambassadors. Quoting directly from April
8, 2006 Turkish Daily News.com (TDN.com), the purpose of the tour was
described by ambassador Aktan as:
"In order to take part in a series of meetings on the Armenian
question I took a two-week trip to the United States together with
Ambassador Ömer Lütem, director of the Research Institute for Crimes
against Humanity (?KSAREN). Our aim was to meet with small groups of
Turks living in the United States who are well educated, fluent in
English and interested in the Armenian question. We wanted to give
them seminars on the 1915-1916 incidents, distribute CDs to them
containing documented information on the issue and try to ensure that
they would be able to defend their views on their own. We had already
made similar trips to a number of European countries."
"Whenever they have failed in their attempts to block these meetings,
the Armenians have tried to prevent Americans and fellow Armenians
from attending. When these efforts did not work they took the path of
ensuring that handpicked Armenians who could argue with us would
attend the lecture at the University of Chicago and take part in a
luncheon meeting at the World Affairs Council."
As the invitation reads, these luncheons are for members of Board of
Directors and the International Circle (IC) and their guests, and
contrary to the claim/implication of the ambassador Aktan in the same
TDN.com, I was not "handpicked" by any one. I have been associated
with the LAWAC for almost three decades and on this particular day, I
was a guest of a non-Armenian IC member.
At the luncheon, twenty five were in attendance, including the two
ambassadors as well as the Los Angeles Consul General of Turkey, A.
Engin Ansay and his deputy. The luncheon was chaired by the President
of the Council, Mr. Curtis Mack.
President Mack welcomed the Excellencies to the LAWAC and invited the
attendees around the table to introduce themselves. Before inviting
the guest speakers to make their presentation, he briefly introduced
the guests and the day's topic for discussion.
Ambassador Aktan started with his thanks and gratitude for the
invitation and the opportunity to address the distinguished forum on
a very important subject/issue for Turkey.
Speaking from bullet point notes, the thrust of his presentation is
reflected in the following direct quote from the same TDN.com,
'On these occasions it became clear why the Armenians avoid meeting
with us, calling us "denyers": The Armenian theses are even weaker
than they are sometimes believed to be. They become greatly upset
when they are confronted with documented evidence of the population
figures attesting to the size of the Armenian population in 1914 and
at the end of the war. Under the circumstances, they cannot insist
that 1.5 million Armenians were killed. Similarly, they can hardly
deny that they had been a "political group" that aimed to ethnically
cleanse the Turks in a sizable part of eastern Anatolia and waged a
war with the aim of setting up their own independent state there. It
is no secret that "political groups" are not among the groups
protected under the U.N. Convention on Genocide. They cannot object
when we point out that the transfer of population in 1915 was not the
only reason or the most important reason for the deaths, that there
were other factors that took a far greater toll: inter-ethnic
clashes, regular warfare, epidemics and the way the civilians kept
fleeing from one place to another as the armies advanced in the
battle zone. They find it hard to respond, especially when it is
pointed out that the Armenians massacred half a million Anatolian and
Azeri Turks in the insurgencies and as they retreated with the
Russian army.'
'
The only thing they do is to refer to the archives of foreign
countries, claiming that missionaries and people like Morgenthau
cannot have lied. We asked them then why they were wary of taking
their cause to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In
what seemed to be a pre-arranged way of behaving, they all acted as
if they did not hear the question. This issue, which we have kept
referring to in our articles in Turkey, is the Achilles heel of the
Armenian cause. Those Americans who had been convinced that an
Armenian genocide had occurred were appalled to see the way the
Armenians were afraid of taking this issue to court.'
'The main problem seems to be those Armenian youths who have been
convinced by others that during the transfer of population the
Armenians had been subjected to the kind of cruel behavior one could
only "see" during fits of hallucination.'
At the table, the Ambassador concluded his remarks by saying that
Genocide is a clearly defined legal term; it should be applied and
handled accordingly. Governments and Parliaments are not the forums
to decide Genocide. The only competent forum is the International
Court of Justice (I C of J). He emphasized that Turkey is willing and
ready to go to I C of J to settle the Genocide issue, but the
Armenians are afraid to do so.
The meeting opened for discussion. President Mack thanked the
Ambassador for his remarks and followed with the question, "What is
the solution, where do we go from here?"
In his answer, ambassador Aktan repeated that the I C of J in The
Hague is the proper venue to settle this issue, and that the
Armenians should stop influencing governments and parliaments around
the world with Genocide Resolutions.
Discussions from around the table followed. One individual (non-
Armenian) challenged the interpretation of the facts by the
ambassador. He stated that what transpired in 1915-1916 with the
Armenians of the Ottoman Empire is Genocide and Turkey should accept
that.
"Your Excellencies, if this luncheon was sixty years ago, your
colleagues sitting in your chairs would have denied that there ever
were Armenians in Asia Minor. Now today's presentation should be
considered a major progress, where Armenian existence was not denied.
But Turkey still has a long way to go" was the opening line of an
exchange that followed.
"Today's Turkey faces some major self inflicted problems. Borrowing
from the Koran and the Bible, where it is stated that 'in the
beginning there was GOD', today Turkey declares that 'in the
beginning there was ATATURK'. That places the beginning of Turkey in
1920. Generations of Turks, Mr. Ambassador, your generation and the
ones that followed, over seventy million Turks are misled by their
governments with the education of their own history. This arbitrary
choice of 'beginning' has put Turkey in a dilemma; that is, how does
a Turk face and explain events in his history that predates 1920,
such as the Armenian Genocide that started in 1915."
"Mr. Ambassador, today's discussion was labeled 'Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation'. In my opinion, if there is any reconciling to be
done, first and foremost, is for Turkey and seventy million Turks to
reconcile with their own true and full history. I realize that this
is a monumental task. And therefore, I suggest that instead of
wasting your very precious and valuable time on touring with the kind
of presentation that you made earlier, the Turkish government should
mobilize all intellectual assets that is at her disposal and
available both in and outside Turkey, to devise a strategy in how to
re-educate seventy million Turks. The Armenian Genocide that started
in 1915 is not the only major hole in your history. You do know them
and should address all of them."
"Last October Turkey formally applied to join the European Union and
was granted a window of fifteen years to achieve that task. At the
end of this process it is understood that Turkey will be joining
Europe and not the other way around. I personally hope that Turkey
will succeed to join EU with the required clean slate. I believe that
it is within the means of Turkey to reconcile with herself and justly
resolve the very sad chapters in her history, such as the Armenian
Genocide and Cyprus. Beyond that, Turkey has great challenges in the
economic field. That's where her energies should be spent in that
fifteen year window."
The ambassador replied with an agreement that it is true and
essential for Turkey to reconcile with her history and he added that
he realizes the challenge. He repeated that he was essentially in
agreement with what was said, except for the fact that the above
statement did not address the I C of Justice demanded by Turkey and
the avoiding of the Armenian side.
"Mr. Ambassador, as was stated earlier, Turkey has come a long way,
from absolute denial that there were Armenians in Asia Minor to
today's discussion. You know very well how over the years, both on
strategic and tactical basis, the Turkish arguments have evolved and
changed. From no Armenians ever existed; to Armenians left by
themselves for better lands; to deportation for military necessity;
to disease and wartime hardship; to unauthorized random murders; to
killings as wartime propaganda; to mass killings; to massacres; to
population exchange of Armenians and Muslims; to the provocation and
treachery thesis; to civil war; to empire-wide revolution; to Turkish
Genocide perpetrated by Armenians; and the line goes on and on… All
this to 'muddy the water' for non-expert observers and avoid the
admittance of the fact that the events started in 1915 by the Ottoman
Turkish government WAS GENOCIDE!"
Luncheon. ***
Los Angeles World Affairs Council*
Members of our Board of Directors and International Circle are
cordially invited to a Round Table Luncheon with
His Excellency GÜNDÜZ S. AKTAN,
Former Turkish Ambassador to Japan and Greece.
His Excellency
ÖMER ENGIN LÜTEM,
Former Turkish Ambassador to the Vatican;
Director, Armenian Research Institute
Monday, March 27, 2006, 11:45 a.m.
The California Club
TURKS AND ARMENIANS: IS RECONCILIATION POSSIBLE?
Turkey's entry into the European Union, for which talks began last
October, may be eased by support from an unlikely source: Armenia,
where the Turkish bid has met with a cautious welcome. In fact, over
the past few years, a number of moves on both sides have indicated a
melting in the long diplomatic freeze between Turkey and Armenia. Yet
both countries retain echoes of the Ottoman dynasty that survived for
600 years and whose dominions extended from the Danube through the
Levant to Algiers. And they share a mutual history, including
Armenian claims of Genocide at the hands of the Ottomans in 1915 and
continuing up through the present time, to the sealed Turkish-
Armenian border and the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
To discuss the future of Turkish-Armenian relations, we are pleased
to present the views of two Turkish diplomats and scholars: Gündüz
Aktan and Ömer Engin Lütem.
Gündüz Aktan, a career diplomat, served as Turkey's ambassador to
Japan and Greece, after spending his early career in Paris, Nairobi,
and New York. From 1985 to 1988 he was an advisor to late Turkish
Prime Minister Turgut Özal, and later assisted in the writing of Mr.
Özal's book, The Turks in Europe. He has been a member of the Turco-
Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC), and has written on
Armenian issues and international law.
Ambassador Ömer Engin Lütem began his diplomatic career in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1957, serving in Turkish missions in
France, Germany, Italy and Libya. He served as General Director of
Intelligence and Research and was later appointed Turkish Ambassador
to Bulgaria. He went on to serve as Turkish Ambassador to the
Vatican, and as the Turkish Permanent Representative to UNESCO. He
is now the Director of the Armenian Research Institute.
Please join us for a unique opportunity to hear Turkish perspectives
on one of the most persistent of Europe's dilemmas, the relationship
between Turkey and Armenia.
The above luncheon was an event scheduled during a two-week tour in
the United States of the two ambassadors. Quoting directly from April
8, 2006 Turkish Daily News.com (TDN.com), the purpose of the tour was
described by ambassador Aktan as:
"In order to take part in a series of meetings on the Armenian
question I took a two-week trip to the United States together with
Ambassador Ömer Lütem, director of the Research Institute for Crimes
against Humanity (?KSAREN). Our aim was to meet with small groups of
Turks living in the United States who are well educated, fluent in
English and interested in the Armenian question. We wanted to give
them seminars on the 1915-1916 incidents, distribute CDs to them
containing documented information on the issue and try to ensure that
they would be able to defend their views on their own. We had already
made similar trips to a number of European countries."
"Whenever they have failed in their attempts to block these meetings,
the Armenians have tried to prevent Americans and fellow Armenians
from attending. When these efforts did not work they took the path of
ensuring that handpicked Armenians who could argue with us would
attend the lecture at the University of Chicago and take part in a
luncheon meeting at the World Affairs Council."
As the invitation reads, these luncheons are for members of Board of
Directors and the International Circle (IC) and their guests, and
contrary to the claim/implication of the ambassador Aktan in the same
TDN.com, I was not "handpicked" by any one. I have been associated
with the LAWAC for almost three decades and on this particular day, I
was a guest of a non-Armenian IC member.
At the luncheon, twenty five were in attendance, including the two
ambassadors as well as the Los Angeles Consul General of Turkey, A.
Engin Ansay and his deputy. The luncheon was chaired by the President
of the Council, Mr. Curtis Mack.
President Mack welcomed the Excellencies to the LAWAC and invited the
attendees around the table to introduce themselves. Before inviting
the guest speakers to make their presentation, he briefly introduced
the guests and the day's topic for discussion.
Ambassador Aktan started with his thanks and gratitude for the
invitation and the opportunity to address the distinguished forum on
a very important subject/issue for Turkey.
Speaking from bullet point notes, the thrust of his presentation is
reflected in the following direct quote from the same TDN.com,
'On these occasions it became clear why the Armenians avoid meeting
with us, calling us "denyers": The Armenian theses are even weaker
than they are sometimes believed to be. They become greatly upset
when they are confronted with documented evidence of the population
figures attesting to the size of the Armenian population in 1914 and
at the end of the war. Under the circumstances, they cannot insist
that 1.5 million Armenians were killed. Similarly, they can hardly
deny that they had been a "political group" that aimed to ethnically
cleanse the Turks in a sizable part of eastern Anatolia and waged a
war with the aim of setting up their own independent state there. It
is no secret that "political groups" are not among the groups
protected under the U.N. Convention on Genocide. They cannot object
when we point out that the transfer of population in 1915 was not the
only reason or the most important reason for the deaths, that there
were other factors that took a far greater toll: inter-ethnic
clashes, regular warfare, epidemics and the way the civilians kept
fleeing from one place to another as the armies advanced in the
battle zone. They find it hard to respond, especially when it is
pointed out that the Armenians massacred half a million Anatolian and
Azeri Turks in the insurgencies and as they retreated with the
Russian army.'
'
The only thing they do is to refer to the archives of foreign
countries, claiming that missionaries and people like Morgenthau
cannot have lied. We asked them then why they were wary of taking
their cause to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In
what seemed to be a pre-arranged way of behaving, they all acted as
if they did not hear the question. This issue, which we have kept
referring to in our articles in Turkey, is the Achilles heel of the
Armenian cause. Those Americans who had been convinced that an
Armenian genocide had occurred were appalled to see the way the
Armenians were afraid of taking this issue to court.'
'The main problem seems to be those Armenian youths who have been
convinced by others that during the transfer of population the
Armenians had been subjected to the kind of cruel behavior one could
only "see" during fits of hallucination.'
At the table, the Ambassador concluded his remarks by saying that
Genocide is a clearly defined legal term; it should be applied and
handled accordingly. Governments and Parliaments are not the forums
to decide Genocide. The only competent forum is the International
Court of Justice (I C of J). He emphasized that Turkey is willing and
ready to go to I C of J to settle the Genocide issue, but the
Armenians are afraid to do so.
The meeting opened for discussion. President Mack thanked the
Ambassador for his remarks and followed with the question, "What is
the solution, where do we go from here?"
In his answer, ambassador Aktan repeated that the I C of J in The
Hague is the proper venue to settle this issue, and that the
Armenians should stop influencing governments and parliaments around
the world with Genocide Resolutions.
Discussions from around the table followed. One individual (non-
Armenian) challenged the interpretation of the facts by the
ambassador. He stated that what transpired in 1915-1916 with the
Armenians of the Ottoman Empire is Genocide and Turkey should accept
that.
"Your Excellencies, if this luncheon was sixty years ago, your
colleagues sitting in your chairs would have denied that there ever
were Armenians in Asia Minor. Now today's presentation should be
considered a major progress, where Armenian existence was not denied.
But Turkey still has a long way to go" was the opening line of an
exchange that followed.
"Today's Turkey faces some major self inflicted problems. Borrowing
from the Koran and the Bible, where it is stated that 'in the
beginning there was GOD', today Turkey declares that 'in the
beginning there was ATATURK'. That places the beginning of Turkey in
1920. Generations of Turks, Mr. Ambassador, your generation and the
ones that followed, over seventy million Turks are misled by their
governments with the education of their own history. This arbitrary
choice of 'beginning' has put Turkey in a dilemma; that is, how does
a Turk face and explain events in his history that predates 1920,
such as the Armenian Genocide that started in 1915."
"Mr. Ambassador, today's discussion was labeled 'Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation'. In my opinion, if there is any reconciling to be
done, first and foremost, is for Turkey and seventy million Turks to
reconcile with their own true and full history. I realize that this
is a monumental task. And therefore, I suggest that instead of
wasting your very precious and valuable time on touring with the kind
of presentation that you made earlier, the Turkish government should
mobilize all intellectual assets that is at her disposal and
available both in and outside Turkey, to devise a strategy in how to
re-educate seventy million Turks. The Armenian Genocide that started
in 1915 is not the only major hole in your history. You do know them
and should address all of them."
"Last October Turkey formally applied to join the European Union and
was granted a window of fifteen years to achieve that task. At the
end of this process it is understood that Turkey will be joining
Europe and not the other way around. I personally hope that Turkey
will succeed to join EU with the required clean slate. I believe that
it is within the means of Turkey to reconcile with herself and justly
resolve the very sad chapters in her history, such as the Armenian
Genocide and Cyprus. Beyond that, Turkey has great challenges in the
economic field. That's where her energies should be spent in that
fifteen year window."
The ambassador replied with an agreement that it is true and
essential for Turkey to reconcile with her history and he added that
he realizes the challenge. He repeated that he was essentially in
agreement with what was said, except for the fact that the above
statement did not address the I C of Justice demanded by Turkey and
the avoiding of the Armenian side.
"Mr. Ambassador, as was stated earlier, Turkey has come a long way,
from absolute denial that there were Armenians in Asia Minor to
today's discussion. You know very well how over the years, both on
strategic and tactical basis, the Turkish arguments have evolved and
changed. From no Armenians ever existed; to Armenians left by
themselves for better lands; to deportation for military necessity;
to disease and wartime hardship; to unauthorized random murders; to
killings as wartime propaganda; to mass killings; to massacres; to
population exchange of Armenians and Muslims; to the provocation and
treachery thesis; to civil war; to empire-wide revolution; to Turkish
Genocide perpetrated by Armenians; and the line goes on and on… All
this to 'muddy the water' for non-expert observers and avoid the
admittance of the fact that the events started in 1915 by the Ottoman
Turkish government WAS GENOCIDE!"
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