The documents, dating back over the last 15 years, say Anglo-Turkish relations are too important to be jeopardized by the issue because “Turkey is neuralgic and defensive about the charge of genocide,” the Guardian newspaper said.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were systematically killed between 1915 and 1917 when Turkey’s predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, was in decline. Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.
According to the Guardian report, one Foreign Office briefing for ministers conceded that the British government “is open to criticism in terms of the ethical dimension.” Yet, the same briefing in 1999 went on to say: “The current line is the only feasible option” owing to “the importance of our relations (political, strategic and commercial) with Turkey.” The briefing said: “Recognizing the genocide would provide no practical benefit to the UK.”
The daily cited remarks by Geoffrey Robertson, the queen’s counsel who served as an appeal judge at the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. Robertson said Britain’s stance, stretching back over Labor and Tory administrations, was a cynical “genocide denial.”
Robertson, who was commissioned by Armenian expatriate groups in London to review the Foreign Office files, published a report on Tuesday.
“Parliament has been routinely misinformed by ministers who have recited FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] briefs without questioning their accuracy,” the report said. “There is no doubt that in 1915 the Ottoman government ordered the deportation of up to 2 million Armenians … hundreds of thousands died en route from starvation, disease, and armed attack,” it said. The fact that Britain is key supporter of Turkey’s accession to the European Union is the main reason behind the UK administration’s stance vis-à-vis the Armenian killings, the Guardian report indicated, but “the Armenian question has become a touchstone for critics, who argue that Turkey should not be allowed into the EU until it admits the truth about its past.”
Back in March 2006, the UK Foreign Office, in a letter sent to the Committee for the Protection of Turkish Rights (CPTR) fighting against the claims of the Armenian genocide with the participation of various nongovernmental organizations, had clearly stated that the incidents of World War I do not fit the category of genocide. London at the time refuted the claims in the Blue Book, chosen by Armenians to prove their claims of genocide. Turkey argues that Armenian allegations in the book, formally titled “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916,” are not factually supported and that the book as a whole was wartime propaganda by the British.
Robertson, meanwhile, also told the Guardian that Britain’s official policy has merely been “to evade truthful answers, because the truth would discomfort the Turkish government.”
Benzer Haberler 
Diplomacy
