Letter to the All-Party Parliamentary History Group

The following letter has been sent to all members of the All-Party Parliamentary History Group by the Armenian Genocide Trust on 8 May 2007.

Few days ago, on the 24th of April, Armenians and many others around the world commemorated the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. In 2005, Professor Robert Melson, President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, wrote the following to the prime minister of Turkey:

"On April 24, 1915, under cover of World War I, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens - an unarmed Christian minority. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. Another million fled into permanent exile. Thus an ancient civilization was expunged from its homeland of 2,500 years. The Armenian Genocide was the most well-known human rights issue of its time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the United States and Europe. The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by thousands of official records of the United States and nations around the world including Turkey's wartime allies Germany, Austria and Hungary, by Ottoman court-martial records, by eyewitness accounts of missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by decades of historical scholarship…"

Years earlier, Sir Winston Churchill, in The World Crisis (Vol. 5), wrote:

"In 1915 the Turkish Government began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous general massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor… the clearance of the race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so great, could well be… There is no reasonable doubt that this crime was planned and executed for political reasons… whole districts blotted out in one administrative holocaust - these were beyond human redress."

Over half a century and thousands of pages of evidence later, the Armenian Genocide remains unrecognised by Britain amid detestable excuses of "different opinions". Bowing to the pressure and blackmail of Turkish government some decide that oblivion of over a million innocent victims of the 20th century's first genocide is an affordable price to pay for short-term and false friendship of Turkey. That is a bad political and abhorrent moral stance which will undoubtedly bear bitter fruit. There can be no reconciliation without recognition, and it is in the best interests of this country to show leadership and to clearly and loudly proclaim the truth - recognise the Armenian Genocide.