facts not prejudices

Submitted by Mozere (United Kingdom), Nov 29, 2012 at 12:35

Young Turks was used as an umbrella term to designate various reformists,so it was not a political party.Ataturk was not a member of the ruling C.U.P. during ww1.

It was Hitler who said "who remembers the Armenians now",not Ataturk.

Turkey was a defeated and a weakened after ww1 and the Greek army was only 60 miles from Ankara you could hardly expect him to punish war crime perpetrators and carry on witch hunts when the nation was fighting for its very survival.The leaders of the CUP had fled abroad.

In 1923 Greece and Turkey came to an agreement for population exchange.The Orthodox christians including the Pontic Greeks left for Greece,and the Muslims,including the Greek speaking,came to Turkey.After this relations between the two countries and between Ataturk and Venizelos were friendly,and there were a lot of high level visits between the two countries until the 60s when Cyprus problems introduced emnity. During the Greek civil war Turkey instead of taking advantage sent food aid to Greece.

Nuri pasha reached Izmir first,Ataturk was very angry with him for not protecting the city and he never had any position in the new republic.During the Greek invasion Turkish villagers had their houses burnt,so they gave as good as they got.

It was the Greeks who broke the international law by staging a coup in 1974,Makarios was ousted by the EOKA terrorists and the Turkish population had to be defended complying with the law.

The Kemalist party CHP was out of power by 1950 ,the Istanbul pogroms of 1955 was orchestrated by the anti kemalist prime minister Adnan Menderes,in response to Cyprus crisis.Adnan Menderes was ousted by an army coup in 1960,he was tried among other matters,for the Istanbul Pogroms and found guilty and hung.

As you can see Turko-Greek relations were good from 1923 to mid 1950s,Ataturk never bore any grudges against Greece and extended a friendly hand to Venizelos and Venizelos shook that hand.

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