YEREVAN (Tert.am) â Turkeyâs repeated statements, offering apologies to the Armenians for the 1915 Genocide, are not absolutely enough to reinstate historical justice, leading Turkish-German historian and genocide scholar Taner Akçam said in Yerevan.
At a public lecture delivered at the American University of Armenia (AUA), Akçam stressed the urgent need of serious efforts towards providing material redress.
âFor me, as a scholar, apologies by Turkey are really enough,â he said, referring to his extensive scholarly research devoted to the topic. âBut what I propose for my government, i.e. â the government of the Republic of Turkey, is to follow Germanyâs example. After World War II, Germany not only acknowledged the [Jewish] Holocaust but also initiated a process with representatives of Israel and the Jewish community.
And they eventually concluded the 1952 Luxemburg Accord, which proposed tremendous compensation,â he noted.
Akçam, whom the New York Times described as the âSherlock Holmes of Armenian Genocideâ in an April 2017 review, also called for a consistently serious attention to the future fight for justice. âJustice must be reinstated. This process, involving Turkey, Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora, must be finally initiated. And it must be an open debate; agreements or disagreements are really possible ⊠but apologies alone are not enough for re-establishing justice. What matters is material redress,â the historian added.
He also admitted the impossibility of measuring the losses suffered. âIt isnât just about a certain amount of money. We can never âtransportâ the big civilization which the Armenians created in their historical homeland. Material [values] are not something to satisfy the Armenians,â he added.
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