50TH ANNIVERSARY OF POGROMS OF NON-MUSLIM

[Rouna]

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF POGROMS OF NON-MUSLIM POPULATION IN ISTANBUL MARKED 6 SEPT.

Turkish Papers Highlight the Event

With an aim to prevent future tragedies, all central Turkish newspapers highlighted yesterday the events of September 6 1955 when authorities in Istanbul organized massacres. On September 5, the eve of the pogroms, a bomb went off in the house where Kemal Ataturk was born in Thessalonica. The explosion only broke the windows of the house, and Greek law enforcers detained law student at Thessalonica University, Oktay Engin, and the guard of Turkish consulate.

The consulate was located right by the house. The arrested student, Turkish agent as disclosed later, was soon released under Turkey's diplomatic pressure and soon fled to Turkey. He was given a position in Istanbul municipality and was appointed governor of Nevsehir after graduation.

These facts make clear that the explosion in Thessalonica was a state organized provocation to open doors for pogroms of Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities of Turkey.

Turkish state radio aired the news of explosion at 1.30 pm local time. Istanbul-based Ekspres paper informed about the explosion at 4.30 pm local time September 6. Representative of "Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus", Kmail Onal, makes a statement on the pages of the paper, "Those attacking our sanctities will pay high price". 2 hours later, members of student unions and representatives of the "Turkish republic of Northern Cyprus" gather at the square of Bera in Tksim. The mob is armed with knives and bludgeons. The pogroms start after speeches.

The Turkish mob robs firstly the stores of the Greeks then churches and homes killing residents and lynching Greek priests. Armenians and Jews are not spared massacres, and the anti-Greek pogroms soon flowed into massacre of all non-Muslims.

Greeks of Istanbul's considerably big Greek community headed for their fatherland after the pogroms. Repatriation continued till 1960s. Today there are only 2000 Greeks in Istanbul. The number of Armenians there is around 50.000.

As there are almost no Greeks in Istanbul and the Jews are not favorable to attack, Armenians, as a rule, suffer Turkish mob's aggression. A cause is always at hand: recognition of the Armenian Genocide in various parliaments and the Nagorno Karabakh issue.

The point here is that no matter how reformed Turkey becomes, it still needs squaring off with its history. That history is continuous. Armenian Genocide was carried out in days of the Young Turks. The September 6 pogroms were carried out in modern Turkey founded by Kemal Ataturk and in days of Adnan Menderes' Democratic Party. Times are changing, self-consciousness of the Turks should also change.

By Hakob Chakrian

AZG Armenian Daily #159, 07/09/2005