TURKISH ATROCITIES STIR BRITAIN TO ACT
SHE INVITES US TO JOIN IN INVESTIGATING MASSACRES OF GREEKS
ASKS FRANCE AND ITALY, TOO
ANNOUNCEMENT MADE IN COMMONS - STATE DEPARTMENT HAS INVITATION BUT WITHOLDS COMMENT
The New York Times.
May 16, 1922.
Copyright, 1922, by The New York Times Company.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, May 15. - Austen Chamber-
lain, the Government leader, announced
in the House of Commons today that
the Secretary of State for Foreign Af-
fairs had sent proposals to the French,
Italian and American Governments for
an immediate joint investigation into
the grave charges brought against the
Turkish Nationalists of acts of cruelty
and barbarism in the treatment of the
Christian minorities in Asia Minor.
Mr Chamberlain read two telegrams
from the British High Commissioner in
Constantinople, dated May 10. The first
runs:
"I have interviewed at great length
Dr. Ward of the Near East Relief Com-
mission, who has just arrived from Har-
poot, which he left March 15. He cor-
roborates the statements as to the treat-
ment of minorities published May 5.
The Turks appear to be working on a
deliberate plan to get rid of the minori-
ties.
"Their method has been to collect at
Amasia Ottoman Greeks from the re-
gion between Samsoun and Trebizond.
These Greeks are marched from Amasia
and then back again, until they are
eventually sent through Harpoot to the
East. In this manner a large number
deportees die on the road from hardship
and exposure. A large number of de-
portees who were being sent to Van and
Bitlis passed through Harpoot between
June and December last year.
"Now that Spring has come these de-
portations have begun again. Once
these gangs have passed Diarbekir,
which is the last American relief sta-
tion, the Americans lose all track of
them; but Dr. Ward has little doubt
that many deportees die in the moun-
tains east of that place.
"The Turks in preference choose Win-
ter weather for driving these deportees
into the mountains. The American Near
East Relief was not allowed to shelter
children whose parents had died on the
road. These children were driven for-
ward with other deportees. Dr.Ward
himself last year in December counted
150 bodies on the road between Harpoot
and Malada. Fellow-workers saw and
counted 1,500 bodies on the road to Har-
poot, and 2,000 deportees died on the
road east of that place. Two-thirds of
the Greek deportees are women and
children.
"At present fresh deportation outrages
are starting in all parts of Asia Minor,
from the northern seaports to the south-
eastern district. A Turkish official at
the head of the educational department
at Harpoot told Mr. Ward, as an illus-
tration of Turkish inefficiency, that in
1915 the Turks has not made a clean
job of masssacres. He said next time
the Turks would take care to do their
work thoroughly.
"Dr. Ward endorsed Signor Tuozzi's
statement of January last that the de-
liberate policy of the Turks is to ex-
terminate the minorities. He considers
that they are accelerating their acti-
vities before the peace settlement, and if
action is not taken soon the problem
will be solved by the disappearance of
the minorities."
