PRESS RELEASE

Gomidas Institute
42 Blythe Rd
London W14 0HA

board@gomidas.org

15 November 2006

Turkish MPs Avoid Meeting British MPs to Discuss Armenian Genocide

Over the past year, a group of British MPs and peers have been
considering allegations made by the Turkish Parliament (TGNA) that
Great Britain was responsible for articulating the Armenian Genocide
thesis; that this thesis was a wartime propaganda fabrication
published in the British Parliamentary Blue Book series in 1916 (The
Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16); and that the
British Parliament today should rescind that report.

A group of British MPs and peers who looked at these allegations
disagreed with the Turkish position and invited the latter to a
face-to-face discussion. To date, Turkish Parliamentarians have
avoided any such discussion with their British counterparts.

Earlier today, the Gomidas Institute (London) issued a detailed
update on this on-going saga. See

In a press statement, Lord Avebury, Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary
Human Rights Group, stated:

"I very much regret the failure of every one of the 550 MPs of the
Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) to reply to an invitation to
discuss the events of 1915-16, in which a million and a half Armenian
subjects of the Ottoman Empire lost their lives.

"Following a Letter from the TGNA to the British Parliament
challenging the veracity of the evidence published by the British
Government in 1916 in the Blue Book ‘The Treatment of Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire 1915-16′, a group of MPs and peers wrote proposing
a dialogue between British and Turkish MPs, with academic experts on
both sides, to examine the authenticity of that evidence.

"When no reply was received, I wrote to every Turkish MP
individually, asking if they would be willing to participate in such
a dialogue. Not a single one replied.

"Since neither the TGNA collectively, nor any of its Members, was
ready to defend their position in an open and critical forum, it
became obviously that they would not stand up to an intellectually
rigorous examination. I believe the original Letter fromthe TGNA was
an attempt to stimulate wider Turkish denialism, rather than to
establish communication between Turkish and UK Parliamentarians which
might have clarified interpretation of the events of 1915-16. But the
invitation remains open, and I hope that by publishing this
statement, I may yet prompt some Turkish MPs with the courage to
engage in dialogue."

The Gomidas Institute is an independent academic organisation
dedicated to modern Armenian Studies

_________________________________________ ___________________________________

FROM THE GOMIDAS INSTITUTE WEBSITE

(For full statement with citations and relevant materials see
)

The British Parliamentary Blue Book and the Turkish Grand National
Assembly’s Foray Denying the Armenian Genocide, 28 April 2005

AN UPDATE from Lord Avebury, Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Human
Rights’ Group and Ara Sarafian, Director of the Gomidas Institute,
London dated 14 April 2006

The 1916 British Parliamentary Blue Book, The Treatment of Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16, was the first systematic thesis on the
Armenian Genocide.

This report was composed of:
(a) a significant collection of documents relating to the
treatment of Armenians
in the Ottoman Empire between 1915-16,
(b) an account of how these records were collected and used in
that report, and
(c) an analysis regarding the systematic destruction of
Armenians.

In 2000, the Gomidas Institute published a critical edition of what
has come to be known as simply ‘the Blue Book’, wherein the
original work was subjected to a detailed examination.

This edition:
(a) traced original sources to their archival originals and gave
citations
where original materials could be found,
(b) examined the manner in which the 1916 report was compiled
i.e. how
documents were accepted for inclusion in the British
report, and
(c) checked the final text of documents for fidelity to their
originals.

In doing so, this edition became the essential edition, allowing
students of the Armenian Genocide a far greater insight into the
genesis of Bryce and Toynbee’s work. The critical edition of the
Blue Book identified the United States Department of State as the
main source of information for the British report, and so it was
timely that the Gomidas Institute published United States Records on
the Armenian Genocide 1915-17 three years later.

That publication further facilitates our understanding of 1916
British Parliamentary Blue Book in light of the United States
records.

According to these published and archival sources, the 1916 Blue Book
was the result of a meticulous academic exercise that lent itself to
serious examination.

* * *
In April 2005, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
1915-16 was made the focus of a controversy by members of the Turkish
Grand National Assembly (TGNA) who claimed in a letter to the British
Houses of Parliament (‘the Letter’) that:
(a) the 1916 report was a forgery produced for British
propaganda during
World War I,
(b) the British Parliament was responsible for the Armenian
Genocide thesis
as we know it today; and
(c) British MPs today should publicly rescind the 1916 report.

The letter was forcefully worded, and the TGNA’s position included
some citations from
books and archives and bore the signature of all 550 Turkish
Parliamentarians.

On 28 April 2006 the Letter was sent to the Hon. Michael Martin MP,
the Speaker of the House of Commons in London, who was asked to bring
it to the attention of British Members of Parliament. Mr. Martin
forwarded the Letter with its enclosures to the Rt. Hon. Jack Straw,
the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, adding
that he had to ‘remain politically impartial’ in such matters and
that he wanted someone at the FCO to deal with it. Mr. Martin also
stated that he had placed a copy of the letter in the Library of the
House of Commons.

On 8 July 2005, the British Ambassador to Ankara, Sir Peter
Westmacott, responded to the TGNA on behalf of the FCO. Sir Peter
wrote to speaker Bulent Arýnc, explaining that the FCO could not
comment on the 1916 work because it was a ‘Parliament-owned
document’. He also informed Mr. Arýnc that copies of the TGNA’s
letter and enclosures were placed in the Library of the House of
Commons "to which historians have access." Sir Peter then questioned
some of the main axiom of the Turkish letter by adding: "the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office understands that whilst the publication of
the Blue Book may have been regarded as desirable at the time in the
context of the war effort [i.e. for propaganda purposes], none of the
individual reports has been refuted; and few have suggested moral or
intellectual dishonesty on the part of the authors, Lord Bryce and
Arnold J. Toynbee."

The TGNA’s letter was not shown to British MPs as requested and the
British ambassador’s letter was somewhat out of character given the
FCO’s usual pro-Turkish stance on the Armenian Genocide issue.

According to one commentator at the Gomidas Institute, the placing of
the TGNA letter in the Library of the House of Commons and the FCO’s
the stern letter to Ankara were part of a common plan to bury the
issue to avoid further embarrassment to the TGNA and Anglo-Turkish
co-operation in the denial of the Armenian Genocide.

However, the continuing media frenzy in Turkey alerted some British
MPs to the existence of the Turkish letter and these MPs decided to
examine the TGNA’s letter and formulate a response to it.

* * *
On 27 January 2006, Holocaust Memorial Day in Great Britain, a cross
party group of 33 British MPs responded to the TGNA letter. Their
response was sent to the speaker of the TGNA, Bulent Arýnc, and the
Turkish embassy in London. In this letter, the British MPs expressed
their disagreement with the TGNA’s position regarding the 1916
report and they invited their Turkish colleagues to a meeting to
discuss their differences. The British response included a special
report from the Gomidas Institute, as well as a recent insightful
article published in the Journal of the United Services Institute.

There was no response to the British invitation and on 18 July 2006 a
second invitation was sent by email to every member of the TGNA,
again inviting them to discuss the 1916 report. There has been no
response from any member of the TGNA to date. Given the Turkish
Government’s supposed willingness to discuss the Genocide issue, it
would appear incongruous that they should not take up such a
proposition.

* * *
The TGNA’s original letter to London was written after much
deliberation and formal discussion in the TGNA, and in Turkish media
and academic circles throughout the months of March and April 2005.
Some of these discussions were broadcast by Turkish satellite
television, surreptitiously distributed on DVDs in TIME Magazine, and
placed on several web pages. Such discussions, like the TGNA letter,
drew on the voluminous output of Turkish academic institutions and
commentators of recent years. Much was made of the publications of
the Turkish Historical Society, the Historical Section of the General
Staff of the Turkish Army, and the publications of the Prime Ministry
Ottoman State Archives. Given the weight of such opinion, the TGNA’s
letter reflected the position of a powerful segment of the Turkish
state and its supporting institutions. In this sense, TGNA’s letter
was the single most important tract ever written denying the Armenian
Genocide.

However, neither the TGNA collectively, nor a single one of its
Members, were prepared to defend their position in an open and
critical forum, knowing that it was fundamentally contrived and would
not stand up to intellectual rigour. The original letter may have
been an attempt to invigorate wider Turkish denialism, rather than to
establish communication between Turkish and UK Parliamentarians which
might have clarified interpretation of the events of 1915-16. But the
invitation remains open, and it is hoped that by publishing this
statement, some Turkish MPs may yet have the courage to engage in
dialogue.

–Boundary_(ID_1HGiCCsISNqzXAuU80e3J Q)–