Turkey believes Argentine judge ruling on Armenian Genocide to be “unserious”

April 5, 2011 - 13:01 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey slammed the Argentine court ruling, which said the Turkish state committed Genocide against the Armenians.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the ruling is “an example of how legal systems are abused by extreme nationalists belonging to the Armenian Diaspora.” The Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said “the decision was based on unserious accusations and it destabilizes Turkey’s efforts to mend ties with Armenia,” according to the Associated Press.

Armenia’s Ambassador to Argentina, Vladimir Karmirshalyan, said the Argentine judge upheld the “the right to the truth.”

Argentine judge Norberto Oyarbide ruled last week that “the Turkish state committed the crime of genocide against the Armenian people” between 1915 and 1923. In his ruling, the judge said that Turkey should help an Armenian descendant living in Argentina learn the fate of more than 50 of his relatives who disappeared nearly a century ago. Oyarbide used as a basis for his ruling the 2007 Argentine law that declares April 23 as a day of “solidarity and respect” in memory of the Armenian Genocide.

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.