1.3 Million Armenians Were Living In Anatolia

Noting that the number of slaughtered people, which Armenians claimed so, was not clear, Kurtcebe said, ”unfortunately, some publication organs, which are known with their seriousness, are participating with this auction. For instance, while the number of killed Armenians was published as 600 thousand in 1918 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, this number is increased to 1.5 million in its 1968 edition. There is a basic data which is considered as base. It is Armenian population in that period. There must be 1.5 million people for 1.5 million people to die. A total of one million 300 thousand Armenians were living in Anatolia in a period when 1.5 million Armenians were claimed to be slaughtered. When the cooperation which Armenians made with other countries stranded Ottoman army, 2,435 Armenian committee members in Istanbul were arrested. That is the day which Armenians call ‘genocide’ and blame us for killing 1.5 million Armenians, the day when those committee members were arrested.”

Noting that Turkish people had more losses than Armenians had in that period, Kurtcebe said, ”if it is necessary to find a responsible for the past incidents, those are Armenian committees which deceive their citizens with vain promises to use them for their own aspirations and shed blood in East Anatolia. Armenians were at most 15 percent of East Anatolia population and they lived as a minority among Turkish people. There is nobody who denies this. But, living in a certain place in a certain period of time does not give anybody the right to own those lands. It is obvious what the world will be like if every nation or community try to return to the lands which they had lived earlier or demand those lands. Furthermore, nobody expelled Armenians.”