By Harut Sassounian
Over the years, many articles have appeared in the Turkish press claiming that various high-ranking Turkish officials are of Armenian or Kurdish origin.
These officials have often vehemently denied the claim, but sometimes have ignored it in order to avoid drawing more attention to it. For example, several years ago, when it was claimed that Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is of Armenian origin, he simply replied: “I regret that they are calling me Armenian.” Given the prevalent racism in Turkey, calling someone an Armenian is considered an insult.
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Former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz was reported to be of Armenian origin, as well as Devlet Bahceli, the Chairman of the MHP (Nationalist Movement Party), a radical ultra-nationalist party. I recently found a YouTube video in which Isa Ilyasoglu, who served in Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), claimed that Bahceli is of Armenian origin on his mother’s side. Ilyasoglu reported that during the genocide, a 16-year-old Armenian girl was kidnapped and raped by the Governor of Adana. That girl later became the grandmother of Bahceli who, contrary to what is indicated on his I.D. card, is not from Osmaniye, but from Halfeti, a town in the region of Urfa. As a child his family moved to the town of Bahce in Adana, where he acquired his last name, Bahceli.
It is widely acknowledged that a large percentage of today’s Turks are descendants of Armenians, Greeks or Kurds, many of whom were Islamized and Turkified, particularly during the 1915 Genocide, when young Armenian children were abducted and adopted by Turkish families. Most of these children were too young to remember their ethnic origin. The Turkified and Islamized Armenians are often referred to as “Hidden Armenians.”
However, over the years, many Turks have come forward stating that they have just discovered their Armenian origin. Some of them have even asked to be baptized in the Armenian Church and reconvert to Christianity.
In 2018, the Turkish Government unexpectedly launched a website that revealed the ancestry of all Turkish citizens. Within days, millions of Turks rushed to find out their ethnic origin. As a result, the website crashed and shortly thereafter, it was shut down. Subsequently, the website was reinstated with “enhanced privacy measures.” There were several reports of Muslim Turks being shocked upon finding out that they had Armenian blood. One report claimed that an anti-Armenian Turkish fanatic, upon finding out that he was of Armenian origin, committed suicide.
There is also a large group of Armenians in Turkey, known as Hemshens, who live in the Black Sea region. They were forcefully Islamized. Some of them have retained their Armenian traditions and native Armenian language which has a distinct dialect.
In the YouTube video I recently found, the Turkish intelligence officer Ilyasoglu made sensational revelations about Turkish President Erdogan’s ethnic origin. I am not sure how true his report is, but given Ilyasoglu’s intelligence background, I could not ignore his claim.
Ilyasoglu lived in England from 1995 to 1996 and moved to Germany in 2000. In 2005, he ran for the Turkish Parliament, but later withdrew his candidacy. He is currently the Chairman of the Resurrection Party which has the slogan, “one government, one nation, one flag and one religion – Turk.” He now lives in Germany. It is widely known that the Turkish government has many intelligence officers in Germany to spy on millions of Turks who live there, particularly Kurds and Erdogan’s political opponents.
Erdogan’s I.D. card shows that he was born in Rize which is in the Greek Pontus region of Turkey. Ilyasoglu said in his video that “Erdogan’s father was a Greek man from Pontus. His mother was a Spanish Jew who came to Pontus via Georgia.” Ilyasoglu added: “If Erdogan dares, let him dispute it.”
“The brother of one of Tayyip (Erdogan’s] grandparents was a Greek priest who, on the coast of the Black Sea, tried to establish the Pontus Greek Republic after the Russian-Turkish war.
“His grandfather and his brother, who was a priest, were arrested, tried by the ‘Giresun Independence Court,’ sentenced to death in Giresun and hanged.” Ilyasoglu explained that he is from Giresun: “This is written in the memoirs of Judge Ali Kilic.”
“In fact, Erdogan’s maternal great-grandfather, Tayyoub, was an anarchist, who after entering Turkish villages and committing murders, engaged in looting. Then, during the 1922 Marash Armenian rebellion, with his group, he sided with the Armenians, attacked Turkish soldiers and was killed in the Taurus Mountains.” Ilyasoglu added: “Let Tayyip Erdogan look for his maternal great-grandfather’s remains in the Taurus Mountains. In other words, his mother’s grandfather has no grave.”
The above cited video is dated October 28, 2023. There are no reports in the Turkish media that Ilyasoglu was criticized or prosecuted for his sensational revelations about Erdogan, even though he has visited Turkey several times. Since the Turkish media is under the total control of Erdogan, no Turkish newspaper would dare to publish anything that may be upsetting to the President. It is not known why the Turkish government has not prosecuted Ilyasoglu for claiming that Erdogan’s forefathers are Greek. The reason could mean either that Ilyasoglu is telling the truth about Erdogan’s ancestry or that the President is reluctant to draw more attention to the claims in the video.
According to a Turkish proverb, “a spoiled wine becomes bitter vinegar.” This can mean that some Islamized and Turkified Armenians become fervent enemies of Armenians. This is similar to the expression, “more Catholic than the Pope.”