Financial Times (London, England)
April 22, 2005 Friday
London Edition 1
Turkey challenges genocide ‘fraud’ UK ARMENIA DOCUMENT
By VINCENT BOLAND
ANKARA
The Turkish parliament was yesterday preparing to ask the UK to
repudiate a historical document that is considered to form the basis
of the claim that Armenians were victims of genocide by Ottoman Turks
during the first world war.
The initiative comes on the eve of Sunday’s 90th anniversary
commemorations among Armenians of what they regard as the start of
the massacre of up to 1.5m people.
The move is likely to exacerbate the bitter dispute between Turks and
Armenians. Supporters of the Armenian cause, particularly in France,
are lobbying for the European Union to delay the start of Turkey’s
accession talks for EU membership until Turkey acknowledges a
“systematic extermination” in 1915.
Turkish MPs completed and signed a letter to both houses of the UK
parliament arguing that the document was “a fraud based on
fabrications, half truths and biased reports and perceptions” of what
happened and “a masterpiece of propaganda and tool of deception”.
The document, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
1915-1916, was written by the British historian Arnold Toynbee and
included in a publication known as the Blue Book, by Viscount Bryce,
a British diplomat. It was an official Westminster document, which is
why the Turkish parliament wants the House of Commons and House of
Lords to act.
Turkey rejects the charge of genocide. It insists that the true death
toll among Armenians was about 600,000 and that many died from the
effects of civil war, starvation and deportation. It says the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Turks at the time are overlooked.
The letter, which was made available yesterday by the Turkish
parliament in the original Turkish and in English translation, will
be sent to London imminently.
The letter says British propaganda in the first world war aimed to
portray the destruction of the Ottoman Empire as a key aim of the
war, to “render British colonialism in Anatolia and Mesopotamia
palatable”, and to encourage the US to join the Allied side. The
Ottoman Empire collapsed into many nations after the war. Its
Anatolian heartland is now Turkey.
The British embassy in Ankara declined to comment on the letter. Some
Turkish historians say the document has stood the test of time;
others say Mr Toynbee later distanced himself from its findings,
which were based on eyewitness accounts.
The official UK position is that the massacres were “an appalling
tragedy” but that the evidence is not “sufficiently unequivocal” to
categorise them as genocide under the 1948 United Nations Convention
on Genocide.
The letter is the initiative of Turkey’s main opposition People’s
Republican party, which has shaped Ankara’s longstanding opposition
to any official acceptance of the genocide claim. Diplomats said it
appeared to be an attempt to prevent the ruling Justice and
Development party from diverging from that policy.