The plight of
Ottoman Muslims throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is also mentioned. According to the historian
Mark Mazower, Turkey resents the fact that the West is ignorant of the fate of millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and Russia, and would consider any apology towards Armenians as a confirmation of the anti-Turkish sentiment held by Western powers for centuries. Mazower recognizes a genocide of the Armenians, but he notes "Even today, no connection is made between the genocide of the Armenians and Muslim civilian losses: the millions of Muslims expelled from the Balkans and the
Russian Empire through
the long 19th century remain part of Europe's own forgotten past. Indeed, the official Turkish response is invariably to remind critics of this fact an unconvincing justification for genocide, to be sure, but an expression of underlying resentment".
[61]
According to one denialist interpretation, the genocide was a two sided battle: "when they [the Armenians] advanced victoriously under the protection of the
Russian Army, the same spectacle occurred as in 1915, but this time it was Turks who were attacked by Armenians, aided and possibly commanded and directed by Russia.
[62][63]
Another common claim made by not only Turks, but also other peoples of the region, is that the actions of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece during the First Balkan War (against Albanians and Turks, as well as other peoples of the region) and of the same list minus Bulgaria during the Second (against Bulgarians), constituted genocide, especially those by the Serbs against Albanians and Turks in Kosovo and Macedonia. Whole villages were burnt to the ground and their inhabitants were massacred on spot and left in piles simply because they were inhabited by Turks or Albanians (and later, Bulgarians/Macedonians). The Serbian-orchestrated massacres of Albanians and other Balkan Muslims in Kosovo and Macedonia were soon discovered by the press- and not only the Hapsburg and Ottoman press, but even a number of disaffected Westerners and even Serbs.
[64]
Similarly, while Turks committed numerous atrocities against Bulgarians in Thrace during the First Balkan War,
[65] the Bulgarians also victimized the Turks (as well as Muslim Bulgarians)
[66]
Turks claim that since no country recognizes this behavior as genocide (well over 1 million Turks were killed during the Balkan Wars and World War I
[67]), it is unreasonable to call what happened to the Armenians in Anatolia (with similar proportions) genocide, and that the genocide claim is just being used against the losing side in the First World War.[
citation needed]
Armenian Genocide denial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia