Prominent diaspora Armenians split on lawsuit against Turkey

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU, ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News


Although a majority of Armenians have supported a new U.S.-based lawsuit to claim compensation for land lost in 1915 in the late Ottoman Empire, some prominent academics and journalists from the community have criticized the measure.

“We cannot allow these individual steps to cause us to fall out with each other,” Ara Sarafian, a historian and director of the Gomidas Institute in London, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “The Turkish people need to understand that these people do not represent the diaspora or the entire Armenian world. Just like Turkish nationalists, they’re trying to make Armenian nationalism.”

Echoing Sarafian’s statements, famous Professor Oshin Keshishian said: “Of course it’s important for Turkey to accept the genocide. However, it is very wrong to reduce this sensitive and hurtful event to material things.” Keshishian is the editor-in-chief of the Armenian Observer, a newspaper based in the United States.

Answering questions from the Daily News, Amaduni Virabian, the director of the National Archives of Armenia, said that although he believes the lawsuit has merit, he does not think it can achieve the desired results. Virabian expressed his pessimism on the matter, saying that he “knows” Turkey will not pay compensation.

On the other hand, Ruben Safrastian, director of the Armenia National Academy of Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies, said the lawsuit could be a way for Armenians to regain what was taken from them.

Commenting on whether or not the lawsuit will affect attempts to improve ties between Turks and Armenians, Safrastian said they were independent processes.

Meanwhile, Syrian-Armenian journalist Harout Ekmanian said, “I think the lawsuit must not only seek compensation, but allow the restoring of the right of return of diaspora Armenians to their ancestors’ homeland, and to guarantee their physical, cultural and political safety within the Republic of Turkey as a first step.”