[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 39 (Thursday, April 7, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E581]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TURKEY AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK FOLEY

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, April 6, 2005

  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, as reported by Reuters recently, Turkish 
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is ready for a ``political settling 
of accounts with history'' provided that historians would prepare an 
unbiased study of claims that millions of Armenians were the victims of 
genocide under Ottoman rule during the First World War.
  That accounting has already been done. A March 7, 2000 public 
declaration by 126 Holocaust Scholars affirmed the incontestable fact 
of the Armenian Genocide and urged Western democracies to officially 
recognize it.
  This declaration by foremost scholars from around the world was 
adopted at the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Scholar's Conference on the 
Holocaust convening at St. Joseph University, Philadelphia, 
Pennsylvania, March 3-7, 2000. The petitioners, among whom is Nobel 
Laureate for Peace Elie Wiesel, also called upon Western democracies to 
urge the government and parliament of Turkey to finally come to terms 
with this dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to recognize the 
Armenian Genocide. According to this renowned gathering, Turkish 
acknowledgment would provide an invaluable impetus to that nation's 
democratization.
  As part of the groundbreaking conference held in September 2000 by 
the Library of Congress and the Armenian National Institute in 
cooperation with the U.S. Holocaust Museum, the prestigious Cambridge 
University Press, early in 2004, released a vital new publication--
``America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915.'' This edition covers all 
facets of the leading U.S. response to the Armenian Genocide, which 
encompassed the first international human rights movement in American 
history. Oxford University's Sir Martin Gilbert, Cambridge University's 
Jay Winter and more than a dozen American academics were among the 
participants in that landmark conference. In a keynote address, Sir 
Martin recalled that Rafael Lemkin, who developed the concept of 
genocide, derived the word itself from the atrocities inflicted on the 
Armenians.
  Prime Minister Erdogan's apparent willingness for a political 
settling of accounts with history should be treated as an important 
opportunity for those who have been urging Turkey to come to terms with 
its Ottoman past. If Turkey is prepared to acknowledge the Armenian 
Genocide, then its leaders can proceed immediately to direct dialogue 
with its counterparts in Armenia to define a common vision for the 
future.
  I also urge the government of Turkey to: decriminalize speech within 
Turkey, destroy all monuments, museums and public references to the 
specious notion that the Armenian minority committed genocide against 
the majority Turks, end denial within Turkey, specifically within 
textbooks and reference books, officially condemn any attacks against 
all Turks that acknowledge the facts of history, and end the global 
campaign of threats against any nation that is in the process of 
affirming the Armenian Genocide.
  By so doing, Turkey will begin the vital process of preparing its 
citizens for a more complete and honest assessment of the final acts of 
the Ottoman Turkish state. Facing history squarely will liberate 
Turkey.

                          ____________________