Sabiha Gökçen or Hatun Sebilciyan ?

The Agos newspaper, a publication of the Armenian community, claimed that first Turkish woman pilot and Ataturk’s adopted child Sabiha Gokcen, was Armenian.The newspaper quoted Armenian citizen Hripsime Gazalyan from Antep as saying that “Sabiha Gokcen was my aunt.” Gazalyan said that her grand father Nerses Sebilciyan died during the Armenian incidents in 1915 and “One of his two daughters was Hatun and my mother was Diruhi. Hatun is Sabiha Gokcen, my aunt.” According to Agos daily, Sabiha Gokcen who lost her family in 1915 was given to an orphanage and then, adopted by Ataturk.Hripsime Sebilciyan Gazalyan who came to Turkey to work as a cleaning lady, told Agop newspaper Feb.6, that Sarkis, Boğos, Haçik and Hovhannes Sebilciyan were the brothers of Sabiha Gokcen. Hripsime said that “Ataturk who visited the orphanage in the Cibin village of Sanliurfa’s Halfeti township liked my aunt very much and adopted the little girl. “My mother cried a lot when her daughter was taken away. She was 5-6 year’s old then” However according to official registers, Gokcen , who died in 2001, was born in Bursa , and lost her father, an exiled Ottoman official, when she was at primary school. She was adopted by Ataturk in 1925. Later on she became the first woman pilot of Turkey. �