^#smrgSAHAF The Armenians in the Late Ottoman Period - 2001

The preparation of this book has been undertaken with the aim of providing a fresh look at Ottoman-Armenian relations in the period of the First World War and its immediate aftermath. It was necessiated by virtue of the fact that to date Western public opinion has been heavily saturated with what can be most generously described as a one-sided Armenian perpetrated view of what the present study shows to have been a complex relationship which can only be fully comprehended in the light of the surviving records compiled by the war-time Ottoman Government. As such, it is intended to intorduce the reader to a more balanced and realistic view of te Turco-Armenian relations, both in the period of 1915-1923, and in the centuries that preceded it.

It is necessitated by the virtue of the fact that today, close to a century after the events in question, Armenian organisations in a variety of nations are actively presurring the legislatures of their adopted homelands to enact legislation proclaiming the Armenians to have been victims of a war-time 'genocide' in the Ottoman Empire. This is a view, which the present study shows is unsustainable in the light of objective scholarship.

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey undertook the sponsorship of the publication of this work in an effort to introduce parliamentary colleagues around the world, and others interested in the issue, to a more balanced view of the relations between Turks and Armenians throughout history.

There has been no attempt whatsoever to influence the individual Turkish and foeign scholars who have contributed essays to the book. The views expressed are theirs and theirs alone. Nor do their views always concur with each other as to the details of the events they describe. This established the degree of independence , which marks each contribution and illustrates the extent to which consensus has yet to be reached by the scolarly community at large.

Chapters: Turks and Armenians: The Ottoman Experience (Ömer İZGİ), Turkish-Armenian Cultural Relations (Nejat GÖYÜNÇ), The Political Milieu of the Armenian Question (Yılmaz ÖZTUNA), The Population of the Ottoman Armenians (Justin McCarthy), The 1915 Armenain Revolt in Van: Eyewitness Testimony (Hüseyin ÇELİK), Realities behind the Relocation (Yusuf HALAÇOĞLU), Massacres of the Turks and Mass Graves (Enver KONUKÇU), The Armenian Legion and Its Destruction of the Armenian Community in Cicilia (Stanford J. SHAW), The Armenian Question at the Lausanne Peace Talks (Ömer TURAN), Facing “Original Sin” or “Realities”: Meditations on the Armenian Problem and International Law (Gündüz AKTAN), The Jewish Holocaust and the Armenians (Türkkaya ATAÖV).