Armenian ambassador to US responds to Turkish ambassador’s article in New York Times

01.06.2006
YERKIR

In response to an article by Turkish Ambassador to the United States Nabi Sensul published in the New York Times on May 24, and disputing the fact of the Armenian Genocide, Armenian Ambassador to US Tatul Margarian sent a letter to the newspaper.

Margarian’s letter appeared in the May 31 issue ofthe paper.
“While the Turkish ambassador argues that the history should be left to historians, the Turkish government itself has made the history a precondition for normalizing relations with Armenia,” the letter stated.

“Turkey should first of all come to terms with its history and stop harassing Turkish authors who have the courage to study the events of 1915. Only after that Turkish historians would be able to research the
rich documents, including the death sentence rendered by the Turkish Court Martial in 1919 for the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.”

“Historians and lawyers, including Raphael Lemkin, the author of the term genocide, have long recognized that the 1915 events correspond to the description of a genocide defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention,” the letter went on saying.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.