London Response to Request to Reconsider Blue Book Concealed from Turkish Public

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish authorities have concealed from the society the response letter of the British Parliament that contained a refusal to satisfy the demand of Turkish MPs to reconsider the Blue Book, the Radical Turkish newspaper writes.



It should be reminded that the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Ambassador to Turkey Sir Peter Westmacott, refused to consider the request made by the Turkish Parliament last April to reconsider the "Blue Book", a 1916 parliamentary report, formally titled, "Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16," that documents the systematic, deliberate and politically motivated nature of the Armenian Genocide. In a letter, Sir Westmacott officially explained that the Blue Book was drafted by the Parliament, not the Government. He emphasized however, that - contrarily to the insinuations of the Turkish parliamentarians - "none of the individual reports [presented in the document] has been refuted" and that the moral and intellectual probity of the authors, Lord Bryce and the prominent historian Arnold J. Toynbee - may not be questioned. The European Armenian Federation considers this letter by a senior representative of the United Kingdom a confirmation that its Government acknowledges the Armenian Genocide as an incontestable and thoroughly documented historical fact.