Turkey has offered $20 million to open an Armenian archive in the United States. All Armenian archives regarding the 1915 events are closed and Turkey makes presure on Armenia, Tashnaks and Armenian Church to open their archives.
Yusuf Halacoglu, head of the Turkish Historical Society, told Hurriyet daily the archive in Boston includes important documents on the events of 1915.
Halacoglu said he had been told the archives cannot be opened because they need proper cataloging.
This would directly open a debate over the genocide claims, he said. “Armenians are aware of this and therefore they are doing their best not to sit at the table”.
Armenians name the 1915 events ‘genocide’ although the Turkish side also blames the Armenians of comming genocide against the Turks and Kurds during the First World War. More than 520.000 Muslim Ottoman civilians were massacred by the nationalist Armenian groups during the war years in order to establish an independent Armenian state. The Armenian population made co-operation with the occupying Russian, Greek, British and French forces against Istanbul government.
Today more than 100.000 Armenians live in Turkey. Armenia does not recognise Turkey’s national borders and names the eastern Turkey as ‘Western Armenia’.