Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turk History Professor Claims Armenians Massacred Turks in East Anatolia
by Subslug: Article by Sayil Narmanlioglu
Posted: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 06:51 am CST

"Armenian Gangs Murdered 110,000 People in East"

[FBIS Translated Text] The Draft Resolution on the alleged Armenian Genocide, which has been accepted by the House of Representatives Subcommittee, has drawn a sharp reaction in Eastern Anatolia, where Armenian gangs had once massacred Turks. Stating that [acts of] genocide have left scars in the East that can never be forgotten, Prof. Enver Konukcu, head of the History Department of the Science and Literature Faculty of Ataturk University, said, "There can hardly be a village in the East that has not seen a mass murder. Armenian gangs massacred over 110,000 people in the region."

Maintaining that the Armenian gangs' massacres in Erzurum, fueled by dreams of "Greater Armenia" had led to tragic events, Prof. Konukcu explained that had murdered 80,000 people in and around Igdir alone. Stating that the number of Turks murdered in Erzurum amounted to some 11,000 Prof. Konukcu said there existed over 20 mass graves of Turks murdered by Armenians who had lived for years under the patronage of the Ottoman Empire. Prof. Konukcu, who had led investigative digs after 1980 and disclosed the existence of the mass graves, said, "It is as if not one village in the East escaped the Armenian massacres."

Prof. Konukcu recalled that according to the Edirne Agreement of 1829, Erzurum was evacuated and the resident Armenians migrated voluntarily to Russia.

Areas Containing Mass Graves

The areas in the Eastern Anatolia region where mass graves were discovered in excavations after 1980 are: Subatan Village (Kars), Oba and Hakmehmet Villages (Igdir), Alaca and Yesilkaya villages (Erzurum - a genocide memorial was made [in memory of] 280 Turks found at a mass grave in Alaca. The memorial was opened by President Kenan Evren on 9 July 1986), Timar (Pasinler/Erzurum).

[Description of Source: Istanbul Hurriyet (Ankara edition) in Turkish -- Centrist, Mass Appeal Daily, One of Country's Top Circulation Papers]

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