YEREVAN -- A well-known Armenian genocide scholar says he will support a Turkish-Armenian project on the "impartial scientific examination of historical documents and archives" related to the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
The joint panel is a key provision in the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations announced by the two governments last week.
Hayk Demoyan, the director of the state-run Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, told RFE/RL on September 7 that he supports the project because the research will provide Armenian members with access to Ottoman Empire archives from World War I and enable them to uncover more historical information.
He added that the study could threaten the Turkish narrative of the 1915-18 massacres that resulted in at least hundreds of thousands of Armenians being killed and thought by many to be the first genocide of the 20th century, which Ankara strongly denies.
But Gegham Manukian, a historian affiliated with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun), expressed concern that the Turks will use the project to keep foreign governments and parliaments from issuing resolutions calling the massacres a genocide against Armenians.
The joint panel is a key provision in the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations announced by the two governments last week.
Hayk Demoyan, the director of the state-run Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, told RFE/RL on September 7 that he supports the project because the research will provide Armenian members with access to Ottoman Empire archives from World War I and enable them to uncover more historical information.
He added that the study could threaten the Turkish narrative of the 1915-18 massacres that resulted in at least hundreds of thousands of Armenians being killed and thought by many to be the first genocide of the 20th century, which Ankara strongly denies.
But Gegham Manukian, a historian affiliated with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun), expressed concern that the Turks will use the project to keep foreign governments and parliaments from issuing resolutions calling the massacres a genocide against Armenians.
