Ocalan: Turkey, World Should Recognize Armenian Genocide

ISTANBUL, Turkey (A.W.)—Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan reaffirmed the Armenian Genocide and called on Turkey and the world to confront history in a letter first published by Agos on Jan. 30.

A recently released photo of Ocalan
A recently released photo of Ocalan

The PKK leader, who was arrested in 1999 and is serving a life sentence in the Imrali prison, wrote the letter in the context of a heated debate in Turkey following a notorious comment by Kurdish leader Bese Hozat about Armenian, Jewish, and Greek lobbies. (For context, read Ayse Gunaysu’s column.)

Repeatedly using the term “genocide” when referring to 1915, Ocalan called the survival of the Armenian people “a great miracle,” achieved thanks to the efforts and struggles of the Armenians.

“Today, the entire world should confront the historical truth of what happened to the Armenians and share their pain, paving the way for mourning,” Ocalan said. “Inevitably, the Turkish Republic too will have to approach this issue with maturity and confront this painful history,” he added.

Ocalan called for continued, joint struggle for rights. He accused anti-democratic forces and lobbies of blocking the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, seeing the murder of Hrant Dink as part of this process.

Details to follow.

39 Comments

  1. If i were an ermenian, my first and only question to him would be :

    Are kurdish people ready to return golds, money, everything they stole from ermenian convoys on exile after killing them ?

    Are you ready to leave the houses you live in and give it up to ermenians ?

    Everything else is just meaningless words against the common enemy.

    • necati,

      We would never like you to be an Armenian.
      But, we would be much happier you stayed Turkish and uttered the same meaningless words ‘We Turks; Committed Armenian Genocide’!

    • Necati,
      your comment is a fear tactic to stop progress. Put yourself in the shoes of your “enemy” and judge the situation.
      Ermeni milati were uprooted from their historical homeland, entire families killed or separated. Brothers and sisters taken and forced through hunger march. Some were lucky and saved by their neighbors and most were not. The ones that were survived and stayed had to see their lands taken from them by the Turk milati and government and they had no right to say anything.
      Necati’s family moved to one of these homes and started to use the land and after 1 generation called it home. Obviously you will not feel right about leaving it. Where are you going to go, after all this is your home, or is it?

    • Armoturk,

      You know what i am saying but just pretend not. If the fascist AW editors who censor 90% of my post let me, i will try again.

      The biggest fear of kurds is that one day ermenians will come back and request everythingh they are in possession of today.

      Ah, if you say, you armenians are using them as a tool against Turkey, i can understand that.

      Armoturk… a hybrid ?

    • Necati,

      You must be high with your raki and cheese and bloody melon again, this is why, AW by-passing your emotional comments….try to be sober like most of us here and don’t act like an hyper radical turk!!

      Kurds were under influence of criminal Young Turks, CUP leaders, who promised them for a free Kurdistan, after Christian Genocide!!

      Turks can’t fool Kurds anymore, politically they have reached to their maturity. Nobody is going to take away their properties from them. The first step is recognizing AG by Turkish government. Kurds are sorry, what they have done to Ottoman’s Armenians, after all they have been promised, for a free Kurdistan since Ataturk took over the power, yet there is no free Kurdistan!!

      Remember, it was Hitler’s idea to wipe the Jews not Germans!!

  2. There were/are both good and bad kurds.So? We should ask this man Ocalan(obviously) as yet under some sort of vigilance,if not pressure..why writes ¨paves the way for Mourning¨.Why should Armenians and/or others Mourn,IF GENOCIDE BY GREAT TURKEY IS ACKNOWLEDGED AND RESTITUTIONS APPLIED???
    We should all rejoice!!!!if that occurs

  3. My father, at the age of 8, found his Kurdish & Armenian village of Khoubek in Kigi empty and saw people running away in fear of their lives. He found out from Kurdish family friends his mother and baby son had ran away to Harpoort, her family’s home. He found his way in the forest to Harpoort frightened and careful not to be seen. My grandmother Zartar with the help of Kurds, once again, friends of the family, was able to escape. As my father told us, his family spoke Armenian & Kurdish and Kurds of Khoubek spoke Armenian too. He told us how a Kurdish friend/neighbor one day went to my paternal great grandmother Juar repeatedly saying in Armenian, your grandson did it, your your grandson did it. He had burned the neighbors wheat that was being stored. He never spoke of any punishment.

    • Mr Kasparian
      We have a similar story in my family too. My great grandfather went to united states from khoubek. We always hear stories about him, i wonder about my great grandfathers journey, i wonder if you could help me to find someone who knows my great grandfather?

  4. Do we profit more by those like Ocalan who affirm the truth of the Genocide for political reasons than those like Obama who deny it or defer affirming it for political reasons?

    Only the victim groups seek affirmation for the truth of the matter as our friends and foes sort themselves out on the issue based only on whether this week they love or hate Turkey and her affiliates. Count Assad and Egypt this week as friends, and for as long as Azerbaijan has oil and gas the oil industry as enemies.

    This we should learn from Israel: we have no friends, we must defend ourselves and our sliver of life.

  5. Life as humans is always full of mistakes. The ones that realize their mistakes have the opportunity to understand what WISDOM, REDEMPTION, MEANING and PURPOSE are all about in their short presence on earth.

  6. Beggars can’t be choosers! On top of it, if that acknowledgement comes from a Turkish, Kurdish, Azeri…leader, all the better! What is there to complain, always adding a “but” after it, when some Kurdish leader as Ocalan is, acknowledges a dark page in Armenian history! The worst case scenario is that he’s not sincere, and is just playing politics; and that will apply to any leader ( U.S., Turkish…). What is it that we want? They deny it…we complain! They accept it…we complain! At least this comes from a leader, whose people have common grounds with us both in the past and in the future; whose people were one way or another tricked into or chose willingly to do the harm they did ( our losses immensely outweigh any care our remnants received from them). p.s. If WE survive, we have to live alongside Kurds, Turks, Azeris, Persians… so hope peace, understanding, acceptance, some combination of forgiveness/ reparations prevail around that part of the world. And Ocalan and his people is part of that commonness!

  7. Some of you Turkish people speak non sense about my Armenian people as well as the genocide the turks committed against my people but we will never forget nor should we forgive the dirty deeds done but Turkish pigs. Long live Armenia and long live my fellow Armenians.

  8. {“If the fascist AW editors who censor 90% of my post let me, i will try again.”}
    (necati // January 31, 2014 at 12:00 pm //)

    You are lying of course, denialist nomad.
    AW would not, quote, ‘censor’ 90% of your posts.

    1. you need to understand the concept of ‘censorship’, nomad. I know, one needs to be civilized to understand it, but give it try, after you are done tending your sheep and are resting comfortably in your yurt.
    ArmenianWeekly is a private enterprise: when they publish even a single of your vile, savage, fascist nomadic Anti-Armenian posts – they are doing you, a Turkic nomad – a favour. Only governments can censor: got that denialist ‘hybrid’ progeny of Seljuk Turk invaders from Uyguristan ?

    2. here is reminder how generous and accommodating ArmenianWeekly has been in posting the vile comments of a fascist, Neo-Nazi Turk denialist progeny of savage Turk invaders:

    {editor: i know you think i am a fascist, racist .
    you know that i was full of humanity until i met you Gaymenians in this fucking AW?
    You know i was one who can not kill even an ant ?
    You know i liked my ermeni friend too much before i met you?Now i am thinking he makes role being a human..
    sorry to tell you..i am not human , but a monster, a butcher, a pyschopat against you gaymenians…this is another reason for me to hate you gaymenians.you made me an animal.
    You must be proud of yourself.especially that one , fucked-up gayvery, the ex-commy.} (necati // August 20, 2011 at 11:07 am //)

    Your are welcome, Turk-oglu Asiatic nomad from Uyguristan.
    And don’t forget to take your MD prescribed medications.
    And visit us soon, yea hear ? Nomad.

  9. Incirlik Air Force base in southern Turkey is built on land stolen from Armenians. Three descendents of the Armenian land owners attempted to sue the U.S. Air Force and Ziraat Bankasi in California. The court refused to hear the case because it was political.

  10. Necati weeps loudly that he was born too late to kill Christian children in ways limited only by his imagination and armory, to taunt and rape their mothers and twist his spindly arms quickly enough, pipe in hand, to break their fathers’ heads open from the rear, as the fathers’ hands were bound. So he comes here.

  11. At least Kurds had balls to acknowledge their part of guilt in the genocidal extermination of the Armenians. The denialist descendants of the Barbarian Ottoman Turks aren’t even close. Turks, how many more millennia does it have to take for you to mature and understand what repentance for crimes means?

  12. This is from a man Turks call “baby killer”. A man responsible for over 40K deaths. A man who led a violent terrorist and narco cartel. Very fitting to these pages.

    • The truth of what Ocalan affirms has nothing to do with his actions, both alleged and real. The truth of the Christian Genocide is independent of Ocalan’s support. But as a Kurd he knows what you know: the Turkish state and many of its people, along with Kurds, killed, raped, and tortured its citizens and neighbors, then stole their lands and wealth. Your state is built on murder, theft and lies, as its blood red flag tells the civilized world. The same murderous violence is now trained on Kurds. Then perhaps Syrians, Alevis, all the not quite Turkish enough Turks..

      One may affirm the truth of many things and still be immoral. You Turks worship the Nazi-lite words of Ataturk, despite his being a falling down drunk, child molester and killer of his political enemies, not to mention Armenian and Greek civilians. How many fellow Turks did he also kill? He laughed at Turkishness behind your backs – it was just a scam designed to enlist your support.

      The United States was built on the Enlightenment, Turkey was built on murder, theft and lies along with a mythical belief in the eternal, immortal Turk, care of Mr. Ataturk, who manipulates you all still from his drunk’s grave. Your George Washington, as you would have it, died of cirrhosis. He had reason to drink himself to death.

  13. I am part German and part Turkish. Yes, Turks like the Germans committed Genocide. Oclan has stolen the Turkish thunder into this revelation.

  14. Necati, only cowards like you could sit and bark loudly behind the computer. The moment you feel doing even a slight part of your threats against us please become a man (the turkish “man” that you are) and try to do it. JUST TRY you noise making barker..

    Till then… happy barking with the portrait of Atarurk in your background “brave man”.

  15. I CAN’T STOP THINKING THAT WHAT IS BEHIND THE Kurdish MOTIVATION IS SIMPLY TO GET US ON THEIR SIDE AND USE OUR LIVES AND LOBBY POWER TO BRING THEIR RIGHTS AND DEMANDS TO WORLPOWER ATTENTION AND THEN AFTER THEIR AIMS ARE SETTLED THEY WILL BAND AGAIN WITH THE TURKS TO COMMIT ANOTHER GENOCIDE.

  16. To Helen and Daniel,
    Both you and some others here ought to KNOW -if you don´t-This man is in a TURKISH PRISION.Do you realize what that means?
    He is very well wound up-like a toy- to say things that will soften up those Armenians -amongst us- that are apt to forego anything just to hear people like thse ¨¨sing¨ songs taught to them by Maestro Turkish intelligence…shall I say more..
    Otherwise just ask yourselves….why doesn´t the good old Toikish fascist intelligence LET HIM LOOSE AND THENLET HIM SING!!!!THE WAY HE WISHES FROM BAGDAD TO BEYROUTH TO b-aIRES TO BOSTON????
    it would be indeed much more ñlogical and accdeptable if the KURDIS -so called -Gvot in exile, in Brussles to be exact, came forth and declared what this man in a Turkish prison sings.

    • Gaytzag,

      It means he is under influence of pure heavenly Turkish opium, resting inside a beautiful Midnight Express jailhouse, and parroting Mr. Davood Oghloos love letters!!

      I wonder why, no European human rights activist, have ever shown a desire to meet Mr. Ocalan in his wonderland!

  17. “Are kurdish people ready to return golds, money, everything they stole from ermenian convoys on exile after killing them”?”

    Armenians are not going to throw Kurds out of their houses and reoccupy their land by force. But as the example of the peaceful coexistence in Diarbakir (Tigranakert) shows, there are already Kurds who, besides apologizing for what their ancestors did to Armenians, voluntarily offer to return the land and house that had been taken by their forefathers to the rightful descendants of the original owner. Just a little bit of common sense can solve many semmingly unresolvable issues. But of course Necati isn’t here for common sense.

  18. {“ This is from a man Turks call “baby killer”. A man responsible for over 40K deaths. A man who led a violent terrorist and narco cartel. Very fitting to these pages.”}
    (Murat // February 1, 2014 at 1:15 am // )

    The original baby killers in the region are your Turk ancestors: Talat, Jemal, Enver, Kemal…..

    The original terrorists are your Seljuk Turk ancestors who invaded from Uyguristan and terrorized the whole of Asia Minor.

    And very fitting for a denialist, who dismisses the Genocide of 2 million Armenians (1894-1923) as ‘myth’, to come to these pages and cry a river for 40K killed.

    And apparently, Turks were just innocent bystanders while Ocalan and PKK were supposedly responsible for 40K deaths.

    Take a look, denialist:

    {According to human rights organisations since the beginning of the uprising 4,000 villages have been destroyed,[53] in which between 380,000 and 1,000,000 Kurdish villagers have been forcibly evacuated from their homes.[232] Some 5,000 Turks and 35,000 Kurds,[53] including 18,000 civilians[51] have been killed, 17,000 Kurds have disappeared and 119,000 Kurds have been imprisoned by Turkish authorities.[52][53] According to the Humanitarian Law Project, 2,400 Kurdish villages were destroyed and 18,000 Kurds were executed, by the Turkish government.[232] Other estimates have put the number of destroyed Kurdish villages at over 4,000.[75] In total up to 3,000,000 people (mainly Kurds) have been displaced by the conflict,[55] an estimated 1,000,000 of which are still internally displaced as of 2009.[233]} (from Wiki)

  19. In my opinion the Turkish society still has a long way to go regarding the recognition of the AG. People are so brainwashed starting right from the elementary school they block their minds and hearts to the dark side of the history. It was just the other day that a wellknown novelist, Ayşe Kulin, stated the following in an interview; “the Armenian issue cannot be compared to the Holocaust as the Turks had a reason to slaughter the Armenians. Such things happen in times of war ”
    If this woman is representing the intellectuals of Turkey then there is a big problem. Nothing can justify the death of babies, children, kidnapped teenage girls and many more horrors towards innocent civilians. I will at least never touch a single page of this pathetic denialist’s books.

  20. I am in total agreement with you Nilly. An intellectual devoid of a sense of right and wrong, without conscience, is a big problem. It is a shame that her education didn’t provide her with an understanding that there is no justification for the slaughter of innocents. However, since the world has allowed Turkey to get away with this crime for almost one hundred years, it is no mystery that some so-called Turkish intellectuals find it easy to believe the denialist propaganda they have been taught. And what of the massacres of innocents in Syria, many of which are the descendants of survivors of the Armenian genocide and of those noble Syrians who helped them rebuild their lives? It seems the world is failing yet again. All the intellect in the world cannot solve such a disaster without the will to do what is right, and not merely what is politically expedient.

  21. Well what do you expect. The PKK leader has Armenian origins. Read about Artin Agopyan and you will know what I mean.

  22. Adnan
    Watch out, you may also have Armenian origins. Like Sabiha Gokchen, daughter-in-law of Ataturk and Turkish national hero as well as millions of Islamized or turkified Armenians.

  23. Dear Nilly,
    As long as Turkish population are cut off from outside world, then those brain washed Turks, who are protected by their holy penal code 301, will never accept the reality of Christian Genocide of Ottoman Turkey.

    I wonder why Turkish nationals run away from a civilized country like Turkey, all of sudden they become professional Armenian Genocide deniers, in their newly adopted host countries!!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26103295

  24. Same as many “Turks” living in the Turkish Republic the novelist Ayşe Kulin has non-Turkish origins. She is of Bosnian descent. I wonder how she would respond if someone tells her that the Serbians had a good reason to slaughter the Bosnians in the 90s. Such a statement would be equal to her rubbish comments about Armenians. When will these people open their eyes and realize that they are “Turks” due to a major branding strategy by Atatürk and his fellow “Turks”. Surely they will say that Turkishness is a matter of feeling yourself Turkish but this does not give them the right to slaughter or imprison people who do not feel that way. Look at the country now it is extremely restless and peaceless. Turkey will never find peace before making peace with its past, before the restless souls of the slaughtered have found peace. To those who claim that Öcalan is an Armenian; maybe yes, maybe no or maybe it is a Turkish story just to find an Armenian “enemy” around every corner so that the genocide can be justified generation after generation. Stay with peace dear readers who want to do the right things in this life.

    • First of all, the reason why there is Gezi protests in because, one, the Prime Minister of Turkey is engaged in corruption. Two, he suppresses patriotic people (he attacks people during May 19th rallies which celebrates Turkey’s independences), but when PKK terrorists (supporters of the criminal man in the picture) riot and have pro-PKK rallies, the ruling party of criminals and traitors do not do one single thing. Patriots will take Turkey back, have a revolution, execute the man in the pic, get the whole facts about the Armenian question (and the Sevres treaty will be stopped and everyone will have to live with Lausanne).

      Btw, caving into Armenian allegations will simply be the end of Turkey. That is why we are fighting against you warmongerers, period!

  25. Funny how everyone else is a murderer and terrorist, yet Turks and the Turkish state are innocent bystanders. Look, some Kurds from ONLY the Turkish region of Kurdistan did participate in the Genocide. Not ALL Kurds. Many Kurds in Iraq helped shelter more than 20,000 Armenians. There were Kurds in Turkey who helped shelter and assist Armenians. The Kurds who participated in the Genocide were certain tribes and others like prisoners who were guaranteed their freedom. And of course, there will be bad apples in every group. There were Jews who helped the Nazis kill their own people too. Today, the Kurds acknowledge the genocide, with many Kurdish leaders from Apo to Selhattin Demirtas apologizing public. Churches have been built in the Kurdistan region or repaired in order to celebrate our Armenian brothers and sisters. We do not deny the genocide as the Turks do. Instead, we have acknowledged that it is an atrocity and that it should be acknowledged. The only people who benefit from hostility between Kurds and Armenians is the Turks. United we stand, divided we fall

  26. As a academic researcher I believe that Kurds and Armenians have the same historical and ethnic roots. I am a Kurd and my father had Armenian friend and shop neighbour whom I respected as my uncle. I was always told by my parents and grandfather positively about Armenians as siblings of Kurds and that they were massacred because they sought their freedom from the bloody Ottoman empire, and of course Kurds who worked as mercenaries for the Ottomans killed Armenians and Kurds as well as they are doing now in Turkey. What such Kurdish traitors have done is part of the Turkish policy and it is defiantly against the Kurdish national movement. The Kurdish national movement was not and never been part of such crimes, but it was the enemy of the Ottomans and later the Turks. For those Armenians who are overreacting and accusing the whole Kurdish nation, please do not mix the reputation of Kurdish nationalism and Kurdish national movement with the reputation of criminals and traitor Kurds who worked for the Ottoman empire as mercenaries. Please, do not spoil our positive memory about the Armenian-Kurdish roots and future. Kindly, understand us and read our history and current doctrine properly, and away from religious fundamentalism.

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