Hey Armenia, Open Your Archives: Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech today at a conference on “The Development of Turkey's Archives, Vision, and the Impact on Historical Research,” where he addressed the issue of the Armenian Genocide.

According to Ermenihaber, Erdogan stated that those who lecture Turkey on human rights protection and democracy concerning the Armenian question and the fight against terrorism have a bloody past. He claimed that the perpetrators of the large massacres committed against humanity in recent centuries are those who today don the mask of a human rights and freedoms emissary.

In this context, he specifically noted: “The one responsible for the killing of 4 million people during the Crusades are neither the Turks nor the Muslims. Those who speak of genocide forget about the hunting of Jews in Europe. We haven't forgotten and will not forget how the Meskhetian Turks were sent to their deaths by train. We are still hearing the cries of Muslims in the deserts of Libya and Algeria. I told the President of France: 'In these matters, you are still a novice; I know about the massacres you carried out in Algeria and Rwanda.' It is known who killed 800 thousand people in Rwanda 25 years ago, and the culprits were the French. They come here to teach us lessons.”

Erdogan once again touched upon the theme of opening archives, stating: “We have opened our archives. Hey Armenia, you have archives too; you should open them. If there are archives in third countries, they should open them as well. Let historians come and work. After that, we, as politicians, will speak. For all those seeking to find the truth, the doors of our archives are wide open until the end. No group or state that touches upon the Armenian question has been able to support their claims with archives.”