April 14, 2005 - 13:10 AMT
TURKEY TO MAKE PUBLIC GENERAL STAFF ARCHIVES ON EVENTS IN 1915
Due to the 90-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide within 4 months Turkey intends to make public 1000 documents, telling about the events in early 20-th century, the Vatan newspaper reported. The first documents with facts on 1914 and 1918 were to be delivered for publication already this week. For the first time the wide public will have an opportunity to study Turkish archival sources. Since 1984 only 21 researches were authorized to familiarize with the General Staff archives. The move of the General Staff is part of the new plan of Ankara's «political offensive» in the Armenian issue. Yesterday Turkey suggested to Armenia to establish a joint expert commission to study the fact of perpetration of the Genocide. Today Turkey admits that several hundreds of thousands were killed during forced deportation and slaughter, however denies the fact of the genocide. At that it should be noted that according to Press Secretary of the President of Armenia, the Kocharian Administration has not received a letter proposing to establish a bilateral expert commission for study of facts on the Armenian Genocide.