Ottoman Spokesman Blames Armenians for Massacres

The Turkish delegate reviewed the history of Turkey from the time of the conquest of Constantinople.  The Turks, he said, have lived peacefully with the Greeks and Armenians until a hundred years ago, when the Russians began agitating against the Mohammedans, under the pretense that Rusia was the proprietor of orthodox Christians in Turkey.

He charged Russia with being responsible for the attack Gladstone made on Turkey on behalf of the Armenians and maintained that the so-called Turkish atrocities against Armenians frequently had been in the nature of reprisals for pogroms perpetrated by the Armenians through encouragement from Russia which wanted some excuse for invading Turkey.

“The Armenians brought the massacres on themselves” Ismet Pahsa declared.  “They have abused Turkish generosity and dabbled in politics.  Jews have never had any trouble in Turkey.  That proves the Greeks and the Armenians have been responsible for their difficulties in Turkey.  They were fired by the example of other Greeks, the Bulgars, and Serbs to imitate in the hope of upsetting the Turkish government.”

According to Ismet, there are no minorities in Turkey which can claim the right to belong to another nation, thus disproving the Armenian claim for a national home in Turkey.