THE DECISION OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT ON THE DEPORTATION OF ARMENIANS (May 30, 1915)
The secret report of Interior Minister and the leader of the Central Committee of the Young Turks party, Mehmet Talât to Said Halim Pasha, was discussed in the Ministerial council meeting of May 30, 1915. The deportation of Armenians was approved, which had been already taking place, and a relevant resolution was passed. It was signed by seven members of the government. The original text of the “Resolution” published by Turkish historians has been widely used as a proof of a hypothesis of the Turkish official historiography as if the purpose of the deportation was only the deportation of the Western Armenians and not their massacre. Thus the Turkish translation avoided reproducing exactly the meaning of the expression of the original text, “imhâ ve izâlesi” - “exterminate and liquidate”. the atmosphere of uncertainty and fraud created around just one archival document by the representatives of official Turkish historiography arouse doubts and urges one to think that the practice of such methods can be applied in many other cases of official publications of the Ottoman archival documents in Turkey.
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