US Congress panel 'Armenian genocide' vote wrong

10.00.00am GMT Mon 8th Mar 2010

London Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford, the party's European justice & human rights spokeswoman and vice-chair of the European Parliament delegation to the United States, has strongly criticised the vote by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives to label the treatment of Armenians in 1915 as 'genocide'. She said:

"Both the US and the EU have backed the welcome moves to set up a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia to try and establish the truth about the tragic and large-scale wartime deaths almost a century ago. It makes no sense for outsiders in Europe or America to wade in with hobnail boots and prejudge the outcome of that sensitive exercise."

"That there were deportations which entailed atrocities and deaths of many Christian Armenians is not in doubt. But the precise actions, the 1915 war context, and the extent of reciprocal killings of Muslim Turks all need to be better understood."

"The term genocide has a very narrow meaning under the 1948 Convention: the deliberate intent to destroy an ethnic, national, racial or religious group. It is deeply irresponsible to use that term without establishing the full facts about the Armenian case and to leave the suspicion that politics or even religious prejudice is a motive. That is why as an MEP I have always refused to define the events of 1915 and preferred to await the conclusion of honest and objective research. That is not a cop-out, it is acting with integrity."

"The Congressional vote was won by the narrowest of margins, 23 to 22. I hope that in those circumstances wisdom will prevail, with Congressmen heeding the call of President Obama and Secretary Clinton not to progress this to a vote of the full House."

END