WASHINGTON (ARF Press Office)—On Tuesday, Oct. 29, a delegation of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) headed by its co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, visited the ANCA Washington office and met with a delegation headed by ARF Bureau member Hagop Der Khatchadourian.
The possibilities of Armenian Kurdish cooperation as well as the national and democratic aspirations of the Armenian and Kurdish nations were discussed during the meeting.
The previous day an Armenian delegation headed by Hagop Der Khachadourian had attended an all-day conference on the “The Kurdish Role in the New Middle East” that took place in Washington with the participation of Kurdish political leaders from Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq.
After the meeting with Demirtaş, Der Khachadourian said, “The meeting presented an opportunity for a useful dialogue about the possibilities of Armenian Kurdish cooperation, Western Armenia, and Kurdistan as well as the national and democratic aspirations of the Armenian and Kurdish nations.”
Demirtaş was joined by Member of Parliament and vice-chair of BDP Nazmi Gür and BDP Representative in Washington Mehmet Yüksel.
Since 2009, Demirtaş, as member of Turkey’s Parliament, has spoken openly about the Armenian Genocide as well as the Turkey’s state policy of genocide denial.
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Please ask Demirtaş, who killed Armenians ans occupied their lands!
Demirtas does not deny Kurdish part in the genocide, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about?
You on the other hand, as a Turk, deny Hamidian and Young Turk massacres. You’re a hypocrite.
This is great, and extremely valuable! I congratulate all those contributed to this historical event which will be a great contribution to the struggle for justice in Turkey.
This is more like a valuable plot to wipe Turkey off the map. The BDP supports the PKK terrorist group and ARF wants to divide Turkey’s borders. These bigots do not care about civil society movements in Turkey Ayse Gunaysu so stop fooling yourself and being ignorant like a particular Taner Akcam or an Orhan Pamuk who won a nobel prize for talking trash about his country.
Adnan: No, it is the truth. Stop fooling yourself, you know very well that recognition and condemnation of AG will never give Armenians back eastern Turkey since we no longer populate it. Are you stupid?
This is a good beginning of Kurdish Armenian relation for Kurdistan and western Armenia.Keep up the good work I am so proud of you.But be
wise and carefull the Turks will try to destroy this work.
Senturk,it was you Turks that put the gun in the hands of the Kurds
and told them to kill the Armenians,promising them their lands and properties .Then you Turks turned around and stab the Kurds in their backs.This unity of Kurds and Armenians is frightening you.
This is a great development. It’s high time Armenians and Kurds worked together. After all, their exterminator/oppressor is one and the same. Ignorant, infantile, fanatical Kurds did kill countless Armenians in the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th. But after they helped Turks slay Armenians, they learned that Turkey’s next victim would be themselves.
In recent years various Kurdish leaders have acknowledged their parents’ and grandparents’ participation in the elimination of Cilicians and Western Armenians, and have apologized. While Armenians, generally speaking, have accepted the apologies as sincere, in time–and not in the not too distant future–Armenians have the right to expect other concrete statements and promises which could reconcile the two peoples.
It’s no secret what Armenians want. It’s no secret to Armenians that they can’t get all that is theirs. I hope Kurds soon indicate to the Armenian leadership what the Armenian Nation can expect from the Kurdish Nation as compensation and as symbol of friendship.
When it comes to politics, Armenians are true simpletons. They’ll accept and accommodate anyone (including the Devil), who passes them by with a smile on his face and a hand to shake. The idea that friendship with Kurds can in some way be attached to the emergence of a Western Armenia is a wild imagination gone bonkers. My advice to you all, get some basic lessons in politics. If the Turks, today, literally gave your lands back to you, you wouldn’t know what to do with them. Remember the joke called the First Republic (1918-1920), how unqualified people (writers, poets and what nots) were in charge; today you would fare no better than in those days. Moreover, don’t even consider the criminal syndicate ruling in today’s Armenia for leadership. They are busy destroying what little there is as fast as they can. Small wonder 50 to 74% of the population would love to emigrate if only they could. Turning the clock back is not as easy as some of you make it out to be.
“If the Turks, today, literally gave your lands back to you, you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”
Try us: see whether we do or not.
In any case, why do you care what Armenians do or don’t do ?
No skin off your back: you are not an Armenian.
{“ Please ask Demirtaş, who killed Armenians ans occupied their lands!”}
Türk-oglu ŞenTürk:
we don’t have to ask (!): we know our history well (!), unlike you Denialists (!).
Kurds did participate in the Armenian Genocide.
Many participated enthusiastically and profited from our demise.
But many, many, many, many more Turks participated.
And many, many more Turks profited from the extermination of our people on our own lands.
The wealthy Turk class of today’s Turkey got their start from looted wealth of the victims of Genocide.
The Armenian Genocide was Planned and Organized by Turks: not Kurds. Planned and Organized by Turks: Clear ?
Were the Young Turks – Kurds ?
Was Talaat a Kurd ?
Was Enver a Kurd ?
Was Jemal a Kurd ?
Was Mustafa Kemal a Kurd ?
Were the governors who implemented the Genocide orders Kurds ?
The military officers ? The regular troops ?
What percentage were Kurds, Turks ?
Was it Kurdish nomadic tribes that left their own homelands near Uyguristan and invaded Caucasus, Armenian Highlands, and Asia Minor ?
Were Serjuk Turks…..Kurds ?
And why is this alien country that sits partially on my ancestors’ land in Western Armenia, called Türkiye and not Kurdistan ?
Yes, Kurds have Armenian blood on their hands: they don’t deny it.
And we neither forgot about it nor give them a pass.
But they are trying to make amends. Many of their leaders, such as Diyarbakir mayor Abdullah Demirbaş, publicly acknowledge their ancestors’ role in the AG, and ask Armenians for forgiveness.
It is a start. Not an end. A start.
How many of your Türk leaders have even acknowledged the AG ?
Pathetic Türk denialists hiding behind Kurds to avoid their _primary_ responsibility for the AG is beneath contempt.
btw: you denialist Türks are not very bright, are you ?
do you realize with your above statement you are admitting
that Armenians were massacred en mass, wiped out from their
ancestral lands, and their homeland taken from them ?
“….OK, OK,….there indeed was a Genocide of Armenians: but we
Türks are innocent. Kurds did it”
Sure they did.
btw2: you denialist Türks are not very bright, are you ?
how could the Kurds have done it in 1915, when until
a few years ago, according to you Nationalist, denialist Turks,
there were no Kurds in Turkey: weren’t they, you know,
“Mountain Turks” ?
Denialist Adnan:
The one who is being ignorant is not Ms. Günaysu: it is you.
You are an ignorant denialist, because you label and libel Dr Akcam and Mr. Pamuk for speaking the truth about the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by your Turk ancestors.
Talking trash ? No: talking truth.
Truth hurts, donnit – Denialist.
Now that we have mathematically proven who is the ignorant one, let us discuss your paranoia.
Lie down please.
Tell me about your ancestors.
Allow me to jog your memory: “We are visiting the lands of our ancestors…” (FM Davutoglu, 2010, while visiting Uyguristan).
I can’t speak for Kurds, or PKK, or BDP, of course, but from what I know about them there is no call to wipe out anything or anyone.
And in any case, it would be physically impossible for them “… to wipe Turkey off the map. “: they have neither the numbers, nor the military capability to accomplish that.
What they apparently and ultimately want is an independent Kurdistan, carved out in part from the present genocidal State of Turkey.
As to ARF: enough of these juvenile Turkish self-generated cartoons about Armenians.
When it comes to the AG, ARF is all of us, and we are all ARF.
It is not just ARF: ARF, Hunchak, Ramgavar, RPA, ANC, Prosperous,…., ABC, XYZ….everybody.
Overwhelming, super-majorities of Armenians both in Diaspora and RoA want a little of the 90% of our ancestral lands gobbled up by invading Turks returned to their rightful, historic owners – Armenians.
So where is the problem ?
Next, let us discuss this paranoid phrase that Turks like you regularly use: “wipe Turkey off the map. “
Are you comfortable there ?
OK. Good. Let us proceed then.
This will hurt your Türk feelings a bit, but it will be cathartic. Trust me.
Assuming – assuming – Armenians do want that, why are you so bent out of shape about it ?
What is good for the goose, is good for the gander – is it not ?
Turnabout is fair play – is it not ?
Didn’t your Türk ancestors wipe most of Armenia off the map ?
How about Byzantium ?
How many other countries have Turks – whose ancestral homeland is near China – wiped off the map in Asia Minor, for example ?
What ? Turks have some kind of a God-given right to invade, massacre, commit physical genocide, commit cultural genocide, murder en mass, steal, loot, abduct, forcibly Islamize, forcibly Turkify – and then wipe the indigenous peoples off the map ?
IF the victims of Turks _were_ to want to do what you are so paranoid about, would it not be Justice ?
What moral right does the Genocidal, Denialist State of Turkey have to exist in its present form ?
Why should it not be wiped off the map – the State, not the people – and be replaced with other peaceful states ?
First of all, the PKK movement is not peaceful, it is a communist terror group and most Turkish citizens of Kurdish background completely reject the PKK terrorist group and the BDP. The old president of Turkey, Turgut Ozal, was Kurdish by ethnicity, and he had a more tougher stance on the PKK then the bonehead currently ruling Turkey, Erdo-gone. There are many Kurdish origin politicians in Turkey who are NOT members of the BDP/PKK. The head of the main opposition CHP party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu is Kurdish. CHP Dersim parliamentarian, Huseyin Aygun, is Kurdish too. Turkey has many ethnicities inside it’s border and they consider themselves mainly Turkish citizens first. Just like America, where people consider themselves American citizens first.
By the way, how will greater Armenia help solve Armenians problems of how over 1 million people moved out of Armenia because of it’s dire economic conditions? You guys cannot maintain Yerevan and Nagorno Karabagh, so what makes you think you can maintain Eastern Anatolia?
Think about it, ever since Armenia got independent in the late 1990s, the population was 3.5 million, now in the mid 2010s, the population is at 3 million. (I checked Wikipedia to back my sources btw).
Adnan: Only naive Armenians want eastern Turkey. It’s a silly dream and you know it. Recognition of AG is a moral issue. We neither want nor can turn the clock back.
On the other hand Artsakh is and REMAINS ours. And you should leave Cyprus. You know, you’re ILLEGALY occupying northern Cyprus!
I can understand why you Armenian supremacists are teaming up with the BDP party. Because the BDP party has direct links to the PKK terrorist group. You are going to say, “Ohh I am for suppressing and denying Kurdish rights by criticising PKK terrorism and PKK is innocent and they are angels.” You are wrong. Many Turkish citizens of Kurdish background are for more cultural rights, more rights to practice their cultural customs and so on and want to advocate their concerns in a non-violent manner, but these Moderate Kurdish groups are frequently attacked by the PKK very often and harassed by PKK members. PKK advocates violent seperatism, drug trafficing, communism and other things which will set back civil rights and democracy for Kurdish communities in Turkey. A majority of Turkish citizens of Kurdish background reject the BDP-PKK kool aid. I know this since some of my cousins are partially Kurdish. Even the old president of Turkey, Turgut Ozal, who himself was Kurdish, was tough against the PKK, and represented Turkey actually. Yes, Turkey was the only country in the Middle East who elected an ethnically Kurdish president.
I wonder why you don’t elect an Armenian as President ….you guys have more Armenian blood than Kurds in Turkey!!may be Hrant Dink wanted to become a president of his people one day..deep state Turkey does not have proper democracy yet, as long as the authorities deny Armenian Genocide!
Abdullah Gul, the AKP president, I heard was a Hemsin. Just to let you know GB.
Don’t try to tangle the 1915 question into the civil society movement by the way.
This dialogue should have been done long time ago,I go further and suggest that Assyrians should also be involved in the near future.
The Turks will do everything in order to tarnish and sow the seeds of mistrust in this relationship,however we shouldn’t fall into their game of divide and rule.
There needs to be more meetings and planning.
This is a most welcome development.
It is a good beginning.
Later it could include the many minorities of Anatolia.
Finally, Armenians and Kurds starting to work together. It would also be beneficial if the Kurds get close and make amends with the Assyrians too. All of us have a common cause and and common enemy in the Turk who has tried to exterminate, enslave, forcibly assimilate, and rob us. We need to stand together. It is now only a small step but it certainly is the beginning of something great.
We may all have a common cause against Turkey today but go back in recent history and you will find out the very same Kurds, about whom you speak so fondly, had an active hand in the mass extermination of the Armenians. No matter how you try to present the Kurds to the Armenians, they are only the enemy of our enemy, nothing more. Focus on securing the occupied Western Armenian provinces, today mostly populated by the Kurds. Only yesterday, they were pawns in the hands of the genocidal Turks to expand and create a Turkic empire at the expense of our nation.
Don’t be pawns in the hands of the Kurds whose intent is to create a greater Kurdistan in the region where our nation was subjected to genocide. While Turkey, after 20 years, is continuing its illegal blockade of Armenia, the Kurds in Northern Iraq are conducting petroleum business with the very same Turkey you want to unite against. They are some friends you got indeed. We should only concern ourselves with what benefits us and if this means using, in our favor, the enemy of our enemy then so be it. Let us, for once in our history, be selfish by throwing morality out the window and give our enemies and the so-called friends a bitter taste of their own medicines!
Avery
you have a way of expressing yourself, excuse me, which will turn away anybody who is not 100 per cent with you. Today the lack of conviction about the truth that there was an ittihadist extermination program targeting the Ottoman Armenians is more widespread than some years ago. you see this in the fact that it has become customary for journalists to use Expressions like “the Armenian side holds that…..” and on the other hand “The Turkish side holds that…”. but what you seem not to realize is that you have an unfinished task of documentation in front of you. The best input from the BDP would be if they could have members of the Reshvan of Malatya, the Ferikanoglu of besiri and the villagers of the present tourist Resource kurdemlik – and many more – testify what their grandparents told them. That memebers of these clans massacred Armenians seem pretty obvious, but did they do it on their own initiatve? This of course is central to the questions emerging from the genocide thesis and the question of the genocidal intent of the ittihadists. But Kurdish spokesmen today are never specific on these points. Regarding this question loyalty to their fellow Kurds reigns….
Ragnar:
You needlessly stay awake at nights worrying about how I express myself.
No need really: I have received many prestigious awards, and have just been nominated for a Nobel in Literature.
Also am very popular with the readers of ArmenianWeekly: can’t keep up with the volume of fan email; I must be doing something right.
Regarding your anecdotal ‘evidence’ of “….it has become customary….”:
Objective, observable fact: there are more states and government bodies that recognize the AG than years ago.
Objective, observable fact: Turkish online news sites, such TodaysZaman and HurriyetDailyNews, that would not dare use the phrase ‘Armenian Genocide’ just a few years ago, now freely discuss it, albeit with the customary prefix ‘alleged’ thrown in every so often to pacify the Turk nationalists.
Objective, observable fact: 2012, both French Senate and French Assembly _overwhelmingly_ pass AG Denial Punishment law. Even opponents who spoke at Senate and Assembly went out of their way to state they were not questioning the AG: they just did not agree with the law.
And Kurds can do whatever they want: up to them.
But they are doing something positive, unlike your Denialist Turk buddy-buddies.
Nevertheless: We know what they did. We do not forget. We do not give them a pass.
They extend a hand, we will take it. But our left hand will be behind our back, holding something – just in case.
And there is no “genocide thesis” nor “question of genocide intent”.
Keep trying, our Norwegian infatuated-with-Turkey Turkophile denialist guest: your time and you life to waste.
“Today the lack of conviction about the truth that there was an ittihadist extermination program targeting the Ottoman Armenians is more widespread than some years ago.”
Ragnar, all this statement suggests to me is that the Turkish denial engine has turned on it’s turbo-boosters in anticipation of the 2015 Armenian Genocide Commemorative activities. I am not discouraged by this, but more strongly motivated to see justice done. “The Armenian side” may have much work to do, but the “Turkish side’s” self-delusional veneer will soon crack in the face of reality.