With reference to your petition to the German Foreign Office dated the 9th inst., I would respectfully like to inform Your Honour that, as far as is known here, the town of Van and parts of the surrounding area have been in the hands of Russian troops and the Armenian volunteers who joined them since the middle of May. To protect your mission station there, it would be advisable to approach the American Embassy in Berlin and request its intervention.
The relocation of the Armenian population in East Anatolia was decided upon by the Turkish government mainly for military reasons, to prevent the insurgency of those districts heavily populated by Armenians. I regret that this measure cannot be cancelled at present or just stopped, and its implementation will lead to great hardships; occasional riots have also taken place. Our consuls in the interior are doing their best to protect the lives and property of the deportees. I certainly hope that once peace has been negotiated there will be an opportunity to speak up on behalf of the Armenians and bring about an improvement in their situation which, as you so rightly state, is both in our own interest as well as in the interest of the Turkish government.
The aforementioned information is merely for Your Honour’s personal information and strictly confidential; please refrain from passing it on to the press or other means of distribution.