A scholar from a university in central Turkey has claimed well-disguised Ottoman Armenians attacked their own villages in 1915 to win independence from the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

Erciyes University also hosted a panel and exhibition titled "Armenian Lie" on April 21. DHA photo

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“According to our studies in the Ottoman archives, Armenians wore the clothing of Kurdish, Laz, Circassian and Turkish peoples in Anatolia and raided their own villages, killing their own people for the sake of winning independence,” associate professor doctor Cevdet Kırpık from Erciyes University in the Kayseri province told the state-run Anadolu Agency on April 22.

As the only large non-Turkic, non-Muslim nation remaining in the Ottoman Empire during the 1870s, Kırpık suggested that Armenians decided to resort to “rebellion and terror” to secede like Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro had previously done. “By raiding their villages in Turkish clothes, they were trying to provoke Armenians against the Ottomans,” he said, adding the Ottoman state caught and killed some assailants during their attacks on Armenian villages.

The Turkish scholar’s unconventional explanation for the many deaths of Ottoman Armenians came days before the tragedy’s centennial anniversary.

Armenia says up to 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians were killed in a genocide which began in 1915. Turkey denies the deaths amount to genocide, saying the death toll of Armenians killed during mass deportations has been inflated and that those killed in 1915 and 1916 were victims of general unrest during World War I.

April/22/2015