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23 avril 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20500

April 22, 2005

Dear Mr. President :

I am writing to you on behalf of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), a non-profit, non-partisan association that includes 54 Turkish American organizations nationwide. ATAA�s mission is to educate the public regarding Turkey and US-Turkish relations and to coordinate grassroots activities on issues of importance to the Turkish American Community. I would like to thank you for your Administration’s continuous support for the US-Turkish partnership and for your steadfast resistance to the pressure exerted by certain groups wishing to undermine the long-standing friendship between the people of the United States and Turkey. We, the Turkish Americans, appreciate you maintaining impartiality on the sensitive historical issue of the WWI Ottoman Tragedy and would like to ask that, this year, in your annual April 24th address, you remember all those who perished due to armed revolts, inter-communal fighting, relocation, disease, and malnutrition in the Ottoman Empire before and during WWI.

As early as 1885, the Ottoman Armenians started a revolt aiming to create an ethnically and politically homogenous Armenian nation in several eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Over the years, village-by-village, the Armenian militants massacred civilians loyal to the Ottomans. These atrocities culminated in the slaughter of 40,000 Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Jews in the province of Van in 1915. The Armenian militias also collaborated with invading Czarist-Russian and French armies. Faced with foreign invasion, treason, and armed revolt, the Ottoman government responded by relocating the Ottoman Armenians from the war zones. The Armenian population outside the war zones was not affected.

By the end of WWI, over four million Ottoman Muslims, approximately 600,000 Ottoman Armenians, and about one hundred thousand Ottoman Jews had perished. Ignoring the Turkish, Kurdish, Arab, and Jewish victims of the massacres perpetrated by the Armenian terrorists of the time, the Armenian lobby groups are agitating the United States and other countries around the world to politically convict the Turkish nation of having committed a genocide against the Armenians.

Turkish Americans and Turks all over the world are offended by these efforts to misconstrue and manipulate history and stain the nation, which has been home to so many different cultures, with an unjust allegation of genocide. This allegation harms not only the Turks, who suffer from prejudice and harassment, but also generations of Armenians who are taught to hate and seek revenge from the Turkish and Turkic peoples. This mentality has led to numerous terrorist acts all over the world (over twenty of which in the United States) targeting Turks and claiming the lives of over seventy innocent civilians (including one American). This mentality is also used to justify the modern-day ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Armenians against Azerbaijanis. Much like the crimes committed by the Armenian militants between 1885 and 1919, these acts of terrorism are never mentioned and have never been condemned by either the Armenian government or the Armenian diaspora.

We ask that you do justice to all who fell victim to brutalities that took place between 1885-1919 in the Ottoman Empire by remembering all the innocent victims (not only the Armenians) in your address this Sunday, April 24th. Once again, we thank you for your commitment to US-Turkish relations and are confident that they will continue to strengthen under your leadership.

Sincerely,
Vural Cengiz
President
ATAA