EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION For Justice & Democracy
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
B-1000 Bruxelles
Tel/ Fax: +32 2 732 70 27/26
Website :Eafjd [1]
PRESS RELEASE
FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2009
CONTACT : VARTéNIE ECHO
TEL. / FAX. : +32 (0) 2 732 70 27
THE EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION CALLS UPON THE UK GOVERNMENT TO
RECOGNISE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
– IN HIS RECENTLY LAUNCHED REPORT, GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC
CALLS UPON UK TO GIVE AN END TO THE BRITISH POLICY OF DENIAL REGARDING
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
– HE DENOUNCES THE WAY THE FOREIGN OFFICE DELIBERATELY
MISLED FOR YEARS THE BRITISH MINISTERS, MPS AND PUBLIC OPINION ON THIS
ISSUE
Internationally-recognised human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC
released a legal opinion slamming the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) [4] for having deliberately misled the British Ministers,
Parliament and People about the Armenian Genocide.
Taking ground on the declarative value of the 1948 Convention, Mr
Robertson categorically rejects the foundations of the official
British position which are deceitfully supported by the FCO and
especially the allegation according to which there is no written
document giving evidence of any governmental decision to exterminate
the Armenians. With the help of the jurisprudence from the
International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia, Mr.
Robertson recalls that such documents are absolutely not required in
establishing the genocidal intent and that it is generally impossible
to provide these kinds of documents, even for the Holocaust.
On this point, the lawyer blasts the FCO’s manipulation which
would require `sufficiently unequivocal evidences’, as a
`meaningless’ concept forged to be never complied with and which
encroaches the clear principles of both the civil and criminal
standard of proof.
Examining the FCO’s internal documents, Mr Robertson shows that by
appeasing the Turkish State’s campaign of denial, the genuine
concern of British diplomacy is `to evade truthful answers because
the Truth would discomfort’ Turkey where UK has economical
interests, Turkey being `neuralgic’ to the whole genocide issue.
Mr. Robertson ends his analysis by recommending the UK to end this
denial policy and by clearly calling upon it to recognise the Armenian
Genocide. Mr Robertson concludes `_if these same events occurred
today, in a country with a history similar to Turkey’s in 1915,
there can be no doubt that prosecutions for genocide would be
warranted and indeed required by the Genocide Convention’._
The legal opinion shows that in giving priority to economical
considerations, the FCO departed from its mission and severely warped
its objectives.
« If true, the United Kingdom must seriously discipline this
administration’ stated Laurent Leylekian. `This is the
international credibility of UK as a State of Law which is challenged
by this legal opinion’ he added.
Furthermore, this study is an outstanding disavowal of the official
British position about the Armenian Genocide.
`We call upon the British government to recognize the Armenian
Genocide and to clearly state that this recognition by Ankara is a
condition for the continuation of the negotiations between Turkey and
the EU’ concluded Leylekian.
Links:
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[1] /extern/url.php?u=3382&qid’9949
[2]
http://ach khar.eafjd.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/ur l.php?u=3383&qid’9949
[3] /extern/url.php?u=3384&qid’9949
[4] /extern/url.php?u=3385&qid’9949