It is a fact that dose to 700,000 Armenians were killed or died of starvation and disease while being relocated during the First World War in eastem Anatolia. It is also a fact that more than 2 million Turks and Muslims were massacred in eastem Anatolia at the tum of the 20th centuryand during the First World War by Armenian Revolutionary Bands, acting in cooperation with the Russians who were the Attornan Empire's enemy.

What happened in eastem Anatolia during the First World War were tragic events from which lessons should be learned, so that similar incidents of ultra-nationalism that result in the total uprooting and devastation of communities are not allowed to occur again.

The world has heard a lot about the Armenian losses due to the tireless efforts of Armenian activists, which indude resorting to terrorism.Turks recognize the Armenian deaths and suffering in eastem Anatolia. What they strenuously object is the Armenian activists' one-sided portreyol of the tragic events to the world community and labeling them as "genocide" using propaganda and distortion of facts, in order to further their political agenda of obtaining money and land from Turkey. While doing so, Armenians ignore the death and massacres of more than twice as many Turks in the hands of the Armenian Revolutionary Bands and the Russians whom they were helping during the First World War.

The Armenian propaganda and allegations have not been countered in North America and Europe until the 1980's. There were no significant Turkish population outside Turkey until then. Armenians were unopposed in their one-sided depiction of history to the North American public, who were not expected to know the facts about the events of long time ego in a far away country. Now that the world public opinion is becoming aware of the Armenian massacres of the Turkish and Muslim population, Armenian activists accuse anybody who questions their one-sided version of the events as "rewriting history". They talk about things like "the psychology of genocide deniers" in order to attempt discrediting those who oppose their propaganda.

No Armenian publication, document or conference ever mentions the massacres of the Turkish and Muslim population by the armed Armenian Revolutionary Bands and terrorist organizations such as Hunchak and Dashnaktsutiun. If they did, they would not be able to daim a so-called "genocide" perpetrated on the Armenians by the Turks. In the kind of genocide Armenians daim, the alleged perpetrators ended up having more dead than the victims!

After the First World War the Attornan capital was under Allied occupation and all State archives were under the control of the British Authorities in Istanbul. As a result of constant propaganda and accusations by Armenian agitotofs, the British finalır decided to transport more than 140 Attornan high officials and cabinet members to Malta for a trial, almost like an anticipation of the Nuremberg Trials. The prisoners were held in Malta for 30 months while the British, French and the Americans searched feverishly for evidence. If there were any credible witness or evidence regarding the alleged Armenian massacres, they could have been found easily.

No evidence could be found in Paris, Istanbul or in Anatolia to support the charge that the Ottomans had planned a mass slaughter of the Armenians. The British High Commission was unable to forward any legal evidence to London. There was nothing in the British archives that corroborated the wild accusations of the Armenians.

In America, there were already powerful Armenian lobbies. Certain Protestant cireles had also been carrying on an anti-Turkish smear campaign for decades. Surely evidence could be found in America, if it ever existed. On June 2, 1921 Sir Aueland Geddes, the British Ambassador in Washington, replied to Lord Curzon informing him that the State Department could not produce any evidence against the prisoners in Malta either.

The meticulous search conducted by the British for more than two years with utmost zeal to vindieete the Armenian allegations, produced nothing. The main source of information of the British High Commission in the capital city of Istanbul was massive Armenian propaganda machinery orchestrated by the Armenian Patriarchate.

From a political standpoint, it was highly desirable for the British Government that at least some of the Turkish deportees to Malta should be brought to trial. The British Foreign Office left no stone unturned in order to prove that the so-called "Arrnenian massacres" actually took place. Yet all efforts and zeal in this regard ended-up with a complete failure. There was no evidence, no reliable witness, no proof and no case. On October 25, 1921 af ter 30 months of imprisonment, the accused Ottomans left the British colony of Malta as free men.

Now, more than 80 years later, Armenian activists are rewriting history through organized campaigns, lobbying and propaganda in order to influence politicians to put forward motions of genocide recognition in the legislatures of different countries. What Armenians couldn't prove legally, theyare attempting to do politically.

In the definition of the "erime of genocide" approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1948, the essential element is that there has to be an intent of destroying a nationa" ethnica" racial or religious group. Such intent is elearly absent in the decision of the Attornan government on May 27, 1915 to relocate the Armenians who lived in eastern Anatolia which was the war zone with Russia during the First World War. This was a legitimate war measure taken by the government against its citizens who were actively cooperating with the enemy.

All sources, ineluding the most ardent advocates of the Armenian ca use, accept that none of the relocation measures imposed by the Attornan government were applied to the Armenians in the areas distant to the war fronts or to the Armenians who had settled in big cities such as Istanbul and ızmir. All civil servants of Armenian descent maintained their positions during the conflict. If the Attornan Government's intention was to destroy the Armenian ethnic community, it would have been easier to do it eloser to the capital and other areas where they had direct control.

The aims of the stili active Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Hai Heghapokhagan Dashnaktsutiune) are well known:
1. To force Turkey to accept the so-called "Arrnenian genocide"
2. To force Turkey to apologize from the Armenians
3. To force Turkey to pay retribution
4. To annex eastern Turkey into Armenia.
The Dashnaktsutiun Committee (AR.F.) is attempting to obtain what they couldn't obtain byarmed rebellion in eastern Anatolia during the First World War, by influencing politicians and the public opinion in western countries to believe that an Armenian genocide existed.

At the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 after the First World War, Armenians were given a large part of eastern Anatolia by the Allied Powers, to form their own independent country. However, this treaty was never put in force. It was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923 af ter the Turkish War of Independence, which drew the boarders of the modern Republic of Turkey. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation can not accept this fact and is trying to obtain today, through devious means, what they were promised at Sevres

by the British, French, the U.S. and others. The following quotation from the letter dated December 3, 1918 written by Boghos N u bar, who was the head of the Armenian National Delegation to the Paris Peace Conferance etler the First World War, to Mr. Stephen richon, the French Foreign Minister, demonstrates clearly that Armenians were not the innocent victims of genoeide but rather committing high treason by fighting on the side of the enemy against the country they were eitizens of:

"The Armenians have been, since the beginning of the war, de facto belligerents, since they fought a/ongside the Allies on all fronts: In France, through their volunteers, who started joining the French Legion in the first days and covered themselves with glory under the French Flag; in Palestine and Syria, where the Armenian volunteers, recruited by the Armenian National Delegation at the request of the French govemment, made up more than half of the French contingent and played a large role in the victory of General Allenby, as he himself and his French chiefs have officially declared. In the Coucasus, where, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Imperial Russian Army, more than 40,000 of their volunteers contributed to the liberation of a portion of the Armenian vilayets and where, under the command of their feoders Antranik and Nazerbekoff, theyalone among the peoples of the Coucasus, offered resistance to the Turkish Armies, from the beginning of the Bolshevist withdrawal right up to the signing of the armistice".

The following testimonial by lord Robert Ceeil also demonstrates Armenians' war efforts against the Ottoman Empire:

"In the beginning of the war, Armenians organized volunteer forces which bore the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting in the Coucasian Campaign. After the Russian Army's collapse following the 1917 Revolution, the Armenians took over the Coucasian Front, fought the T urks for five months, and thus rendered o very important service to the British Army in Mesopotamia. They served alike in the British, French and American armies, and have bom e their part in General Allenby's victory over the Turks in Palestine. The services rendered by the Armenians in the Common Cause can never be forgotten."

liman von Sanders, the German General said that
"The collapse of the Turkish Pa/estinian front was due to the fact that the Turks sent all their available forces to the Coucasian and Azerbijan fronts where they fought the Armenians. "

The Greek scholar Alexander Pallis, in his book entitled "In the Days of the Janissaries", 1951, outlined the European attitude against Turkey, which the Armenians exploited, as follows:

"Religious fanaticism and the fear bom with the unbroken Turkish military success, resulted in creating among Europeans o state of mind which rendered them for the most part incapable of viewing Turkeyand the Turks with an objective and unbiased eye".

The sema biased attitude against Turkey stili prevails today. The quotations and articles by non-Turks in this publication are intended to show the other side of the coin and to bring some objectivity to the Armenian claims regarding "genocide". They demonstrate clearly that Armenians were not the innocent victims of "genoeide", however, did suffer the tragic consequences of the activities of their Armed Revolutionary Committees, just as did more than twice as many Turks.

The Armenians living in Turkey today lead a respectable life with their 57 churches, 18 schools and numerous newspapers, magazines, assoeiations and sport Cıvbs. The Declaration on January 30,2001, by a total of 53 Parish Council of Armenian Churches and Board of Administrators of Armenian Schools and Hospitals in Turkey, which is included in this publication, is a living testimonial to this. It is clear that they are fed up with the political activities of the Armenian diaspora in the Parliaments of the North American and European countries, influencing elected members into making biased resolutions against Turkey while distorting the histofical realities.