Turkish authorities managed to poison the mind of their own people by falsifying the Turkish history and claiming that Turkish history dates back to Hittites and Sumers, Zaven Yegavian, Director of the Armenian Communities Department of Portugal-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation said in Yerevan.
“One should not forget that the Turkish civilization is basing on Armenian bones,” he told a press conference on April 23.
“Turks began distorting history back at Kemal Ataturk’s reign. Unfortunately, external and domestic reasons prevented Armenians from establishing a single position on the Genocide,” he said.
Only following mass unsanctioned public speeches on 50th anniversary of Genocide in 1965, Soviet-era Armenians began to look into this problem and publish research works on Genocide.
ARF Dashnaktsutyun was the first to voice this problem, Yegavian said adding that literature published on Genocide before 1960s was not quite scientific one.