Turkey is Destroying Armenian Cultural Heritage: Historian

Historian Edik Minasyan, who went to Western Armenia (currently, Eastern Turkey) in July  with a group of historians, spoke on Turkish policy at a Sept. 25 press conference.

According to him, since 2006, Turkish policy applies every possible means of denying the Armenian Genocide and adopts a policy of assimiliating and destroying Armenia’s cultural heritage. Minasyan said that in 2005, the Turks had organized exhibits in London and in Brussels in which Armenian historical and cultural values were presented as Turkish values. (It is unclear whether the organizers Minasyan was referring to were Turkish citizens or local citizens of Turkish descent, or whether these were state-funded exhibits by Turkey.)

Minasyan belives that if Turkey renovates or restores any given Armenian church or monument, it’s mainly for business purposes. And since the country plans on joining the EU, now they want to show the whole world that they are civilized, said the historian.

Continuing, he said that Turkey has removed from the archives and destroyed many documents related to the Armenian Genocide; however, published sources on the Genocide from Australia, Germany and England have been preserved, as well as statements from ambassadors, diplomats and letters from those years, not to mention writing by writers from that time on the Armenian Genocide.