Turkish President Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan accused the Armenian diaspora for being unwilling to open the archives and working together to find the real facts about the 1915 incidents that happened between the Ottoman authority and its Armenian citizens.
“I am addressing the Armenian diaspora, open your documents, archives. Let historians examine them," Erdoğan said on Thursday, February 19, during his speech in Istanbul.
During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire approved a deportation law for Armenians, amid their uprising with the help of the invading Russian army. As a result, an unknown number of people died in civil strife.
In recent years, the Armenian diaspora has been launching wide-scale propaganda activities against Turkey across the world and trying to show the incident as a so called “genocide."
The debate on "genocide" and the differing opinions between the present-day Turkish government and the Armenian diaspora, along with the current administration in Yerevan, still generates political tension between Turks and Armenians.
Erdoğan said this work would not run with propaganda, the reality would not be unveiled by lobby work because “there is a vigorous Turkey now". “You can't do it against this Turkey."
He called on the Armenian diaspora once again by saying, “But if you are sincere to solve this problem, if you are willing about a justice brain, then we are here. We are with our archives, our historians, our self-confidence. We are expecting all parties to show the same stance. “
“I am addressing the Armenian diaspora, open your documents, archives. Let historians examine them," he said and added that they never answered Turkey's call due to their insincerity. He further said that if they did not answer, then Turkey would pull the issue out of its agenda.
The Turkish president said that they are working not only for the safety of their own country, but also for peace in the region as well as all for all over the world.
While addressing the youth, Erdoğan suggested them to be brave and said, “cowards never made a victory monument."
He also advises them to prepare themselves for a better future by equipping themselves with enlightenment.
