WASHINGTON–The Armenian National Committee of America has applauded Re. Steve Rothman (D-NJ) for distributing to all members of the US House a study he commissioned reaffirming the facts of the Armenian Genocide and providing a point-by-point rebuttal to a 12-page letter from the Turkish Ambassador to members of Congress in which he denied the Armenian Genocide and accused Armenia’s instead of having massacred 1.1. Muslims.
"We join with Armenia’s in New Jersey and around the nation in thanking Congressman Rothman for working with the Zoryan Institute to commission this study discrediting the fabrications and unfounded denials being manufactured by the Turkish Embassy," said Aram Hamparian–Executive Director of the ANCA. "By placing the facts before members of Congress–he has helped to set the record straight on the Armenian Genocide and to further discredit a shameful campaign of genocide denial and historical revisionism by a Turkish government that seems perpetually incapable of coming to terms with either its past crimes or present atrocities."
In a July 21 letter to his House colleagues–Rep. Rothman’said he was compelled to provide accurate information on the Genocide after learning that "Ambassador Baki Ilkin of the Republic of Turkey has circulated a letter to House members that includes argumen’s justifying his government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide." The Ambassador’s May 27 letter–attacked a series of findings in a recently introduced House resolution on the Armenian Genocide. In his letter–Amb. Ilkin advanced a number of denials–in one instance describing the mass deportations which led to the death of over 1.5 million Armenia’s as "merely [relocation] to another region within the country." Ilkin also dismissed US Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau’s reports describing Turkish atrocities against the Armenian minority as politically motivated to "vilify the Ottoman Empire–an enemy of the Allied Powers." According to Ilkin–efforts by American missionaries and consuls deployed to Eastern Turkey to document and end the crimes "reflect extreme anti-Muslim bigotry."
A comprehensive–26-page response–commissioned by Rep–Rothman and prepared by the Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation–provides a point-by-point rebuttal to the Turkish Ambassador’s claims.
Explaining that "practically all of these objections and allegations [presented in the Ilkin letter] are part and parcel of the standard repertoire of Turkish denials that are repeated time after time blandly and almost ritually," this document–entitled "The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide," represents a useful tool in combating Turkish Government revisionist efforts not only in Congress–but in US universities and in other arenas in which Turkey seeks to advance its denial agenda.