Suay Karaman writes: Talat Pasha

A Talat Pasha monument was commissioned by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality on Talat Pasha Boulevard in the Altındağ district. On June 18, 2025, while the 'Draft Law on Amendments to Certain Laws and Decree-Laws' was being discussed in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) General Assembly, DEM Party Mardin Deputy George Aslan took the floor and reacted harshly to the construction of the Talat Pasha monument by the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, insulting Mehmed Talat Pasha (1874-1921), a leading figure of the Committee of Union and Progress and a figure considered a genocidal perpetrator by some, by calling him a murderer.

In his speech, George Aslan said, "While we were expecting a sincere confrontation regarding the genocide committed against Christian peoples in 1915, on the contrary, the names of the perpetrators are being given to public spaces, streets, parks, and schools, and their monuments are being erected. A monument for Talat Pasha was built in the Altındağ district by Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Mansur Yavaş. We do not accept the erection of a monument for someone who gave the order for the death of tens of thousands of Armenians who were killed, exiled, and whose property was seized in 1915, when a monument should have been erected for them. For one people, some individuals may be heroes, but for other peoples, these people are not heroes but murderers."

İYİ Party deputies reacted harshly to this speech by George Aslan, which targeted the honor of our nation and the dignity of our state under the roof of the TBMM, but CHP, MHP, and AKP deputies remained silent. TBMM Deputy Speaker Tekin Bingöl of the CHP, instead of giving the necessary response to the insult directed at national hero Talat Pasha, issued a warning on decorum to İYİ Party Manisa Deputy Şenol Sunat, who reacted to this speech. Upon this, TBMM Clerk Member and İYİ Party Denizli Deputy Yasin Öztürk reacted to the negligence of TBMM Deputy Speaker Tekin Bingöl. Striking the TBMM Deputy Speaker's desk, he said, "The DEM Party deputy exceeded his limits while making criticisms. The Speaker of the Assembly, who remained silent on this speech, interrupted our own speaker, Şenol Sunat. You cannot manage the Assembly impartially. My advice to you is to leave this post as soon as possible." Following these words, a censure penalty was imposed on Yasin Öztürk with the votes of the CHP, AKP, and DEM. The MHP abstained on such an issue.

It is thought-provoking that CHP's Tekin Bingöl lashed out at TBMM Clerk Member Yasin Öztürk instead of reacting to this insult while he was presiding over the TBMM. In fact, in a television program he attended on March 6, 2025, Tekin Bingöl stated that Article 66 of the Constitution should be re-evaluated and suggested that the article stating 'Everyone who is bound to the Turkish state by the bond of citizenship is a Turk' should be opened for discussion. Furthermore, stating that it was wrong to define the term 'Turk' in a sharp manner, he said, "The understanding that 'there is a Turk, and nothing else' damages social consensus and this situation harms the solution process."

Participating in this debate, CHP High Disciplinary Board Member İsmail Emre Telci said, "The Republican People's Party is not obliged to defend or support Talat Pasha." CHP Chairman Özgür Özel, supporting the Deputy Speaker of the TBMM, said, "It is clearly evident that Tekin Bingöl's stance on the 'Armenian genocide' issue is no different from mine or our party's."

If CHP deputies do not speak out against and instead defend a DEM Party deputy calling Talat Pasha a 'genocidal perpetrator' and a 'murderer' in the TBMM, then the CHP has ceased to be Atatürk's party and has transformed into the party of those who want to divide Turkey. Every CHP member who says 'now is not the time' and remains silent so that the CHP does not suffer harm is an accomplice to this crime. The Republican People's Party is a party founded by those who swore an oath to protect Turkey's independence and territorial integrity. A party that acts as an advocate for those who want to divide Turkey cannot claim to be the party of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Talat Pasha, one of the leading figures of the Committee of Union and Progress and a symbol of resistance against imperialist occupation as a patriotic statesman, was elected as an Edirne deputy to the Chamber of Deputies after the Second Constitutional Era on July 23, 1908, and became the first deputy speaker. Starting from July 1909, he served as Minister of the Interior, Minister of Post and Telegraph, and again as Minister of the Interior, respectively.

Armenians, who committed massacres in Eastern Anatolian villages with the help of the Russian Army, had decided to establish an Armenian State in the region. Minister of the Interior Talat Pasha, following the suggestion of the Ottoman Empire's ally, German Commander Liman von Sanders, organized the forced migration. There is no genocide; there is forced migration. Talat Pasha is the person who ended the dream of a Greater Armenia.

Talat Pasha was appointed as Grand Vizier between February 3, 1917, and October 8, 1918. Upon the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War and the signing of the Armistice of Mudros on October 30, 1918, the three leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress, Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha (1881-1922), and Cemal Pasha (1872-1922), were forced to flee abroad.

Armenian committee members, who held the Committee of Union and Progress responsible for the migration of Armenians from our Eastern provinces in 1915, began to look for opportunities to take revenge on Enver, Talat, and Cemal Pasha, who were the leaders of this organization. Talat Pasha was killed on March 15, 1921, in Berlin by an Armenian named Soghomon Tehlirian (1896-1960). The German court did not give any punishment to the perpetrator of this murder committed on its own soil, acquitting Tehlirian on the grounds that he was traumatized by the deportation. Germany, which had been known as a friend for years and with whom a common fate was shared during the First World War, did not even show respect for the memory and the corpse of Talat Pasha. Thus, it was revealed that the legendary saying 'there are judges in Berlin' was also hollow.

After Talat Pasha was killed in an assassination, Mustafa Kemal Pasha said, "The homeland has lost a great son, and the revolution has lost a great organizer." The TBMM declared the great hero Talat Pasha a martyr, and with a law enacted in 1926, a house was given to Talat Pasha's family and a martyr's pension was granted. Talat Pasha's remains, which were in the Turkish cemetery in Berlin, were brought to Istanbul on February 25, 1944, and buried in the Abide-i Hürriyet (Monument of Liberty) martyrs' cemetery with a ceremony.

The bullet fired at Talat Pasha on March 15, 1921, by the hand of a puppet of imperialist, occupying states, has unfortunately entered the TBMM today. The report titled "The Dashnaktsutyun Has Nothing More to Do," presented by Hovhannes Katchaznouni (1867-1938), the first Prime Minister of the Armenian state, at the Dashnak Party meeting held in Bucharest in 1923 regarding the Armenian issue, reveals all the facts. However, it is clear that the TBMM Deputy Speaker and many deputies, especially those from the CHP, are unaware of this. Just as they are unaware of the statue of the Armenian murderer Soghomon Tehlirian, who is crushing the severed head of Talat Pasha, which was erected in the Shirak province of Armenia...

Azim ve Karar, June 23, 2025

News Source: 12punto