UK Foreign Ministry publishes Genocide docs ahead of book release

October 2, 2014 - 18:43 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - British Foreign Ministry released a collection of 54 documents on The Armenian Massacres and UK Policy. The collection contains letters written to British ministers and MPs from different departments of the Foreign Ministry. The documents have been readied from the period from April 14, 2009 to June 27, 2014, ARF Dashnaktsutyun website reported.

Also, British lawyer Geoffrey Robertson’s book “An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?” to be released Oct 1, 7 and 16 in Australia, Canada & the U.S. and Great Britain respectively will dean with the duplicity of Britain and other countries worldwide in non-recognition of the crime against humanity. The book draws on a variety of materials including those published by the British Foreign Ministry.

According to the head of The Armenian National Committee of UK, Sevan Artin, the book couldn’t but affect the British Foreign Ministry which hurried to release the materials, earlier provided to Robertson, in an attempt to justify itself. “We purchased 1000 copies of the book to raise the Genocide awareness in political, media and other circles. We’re also planning a book presentation in British Parliament,” Artin sad.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.