EAFJD calls upon the UK government to recognize the Armenian Genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net - Internationally-recognised human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC released a legal opinion slamming the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 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.