WOLFOWITZ:
“The Attitude of the Turks Towards the Ethnic Groups Has Really Affected Me”

The US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz mentioned some facts regarding the Turkish-Armenian relations in his statement given to the Turkish CNN TV on 14th July 2002.
In his speech Wolfowitz said: “I think that the real norms of a nation’s democracy can be understood by their attitudes towards the minority groups in their country. Turkey’s attitude towards ethnic groups affected me to a great extent.”
After this statement, Executive Chair of the Armenian National Congress of America (ANCA) Aram Hamparyan sent an urgent letter to Wolfowitz which was written in a state of shock. The deep disappointment about the statement, which meant that the Armenian genocide was denied by the US, was mentioned in the letter.
Wolfowitz who assessed the rights and freedom of the Armenians living in Turkey said that they had 1 Patriarch, 2 hospitals, 57 churches, 58 foundations, 18 schools, 17 associations, 2 sports clubs, 3 newspapers and 5 periodicals which are still active, and pointed out in his statement that the genocide claims are nothing more than issues brought up on the agenda only for the sake of political interests.
It appears that when Turkey began declaring all the data of objective science and when it started possessing its own history, the unreal claims of the Armenians since the 1800s, who are experts in producing propaganda depending on forged documents, prove to be futile once again.