The British House of Lords has rejected to further a measure to recognize as “genocide” the Armenian-Ottoman tragic events of 1915.
Lord Hylton in his remarks at the meeting stated that he did not support the term “genocide” to describe the events of 1915 and suggested that parliamentary action would undermine Turkish-Armenian normalization efforts. Lord Maginnis, also objecting to the measure, stated that the rather than focusing on a 100 year old tragedy, attention should be given to the Armenian created human tragedy in Karabakh today that created 1 million Azerbaijani refugees. He added that the Russian-Armenian alliance at the time of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire provoked the events that led to the tragic developments. Lord Kilclooney also voiced his objection to the proposed commemorative measure and, drawing attention to the fact that thousands of Turks and Armenians lost their lives in the events of 1915, stated that supporting genocide allegations was wrong.
Speaking on behalf of the British government, State Minister Baroness Kinnock voiced the British government’s continued opposition to applying the term “genocide” and stated that the British Government also does not support to take a position which could halt the Armenia-Turkey normalization process. She reiterated that there was no judicial body that could proclaim on the genocide allegations and that it would therefore be wrong for the British Government to term the 1915 events as genocide.
The Minister’s position confirms the British Government’s position on the issue (British Prime Minister’s Response of December 7, 2007) which states that “British Governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, a convention which is, in any event, not retrospective in application.”