Genocide: - DIIS

Mehmet Necef
European Union, the European Parliament passed a resolution on June 18,
1987 recognizing what happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
between 1915-1917 as an act of genocide and calling on the Turkish nation
to recognize this act of genocide. Moreover, the resolution stated that the
rejection of recognition by the Turkish government should be an “insurmountable
obstacle” to its membership of the EU. 3
Intellectually, more importantly the internationally renowned The Permanent
People’s Tribunal, following the tradition of the Bertrand Russell
tribunals, convened in Paris in April 1984 and condemned the Armenian
genocide and called on the Turkish government to recognize it. A quick
look at the list of participants will convince anybody of the intellectual
weight of the Tribunal: Maxime Rodinson, Jürgen Habermas, Jacques Derrida,
Francois Lyotard, Edgar Morin, Raymond Aron, V. Jankélewitch, F.
Jacop, L. Sciascia, Simone de Beauvoir, Roland Barthes, A. London, Marguerite
Duras, Alain Touraine, D. Mayer, A. Lwoff, Bertrand Kouchner,
Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, F. Perroux, H. Tazieff, F. Furet, E. Le Roy
Ladurie and Claude Lefort. 4
In this article I will present and discuss the passionate and prolonged
debate which these resolutions have triggered off among Turkish intellec-
3 The text is as follows: “The European Parliament believes that the tragic events in 1915-
1917 involving the Armenians living in the territory of the Ottoman Empire constitute
genocide within the meaning of the convention on the prevention and punishment of the
crime of genocide adopted by the UN General Assembly on 9 December 1948…Believes
that the refusal by the present Turkish Government to acknowledge the genocide against
the Armenian people committed by the Young Turk Government…[is an] insurmountable
obstacle to consideration of Turkey‘s accession to the Community“. European Parliament
Resolution on a political solution to the Armenian question – Doc. A2-33/87 can be found
at http://www.armenian-genocide.org/affi rmation/resolutions/153.htm
4 The tribunal stated that: “The extermination of the Armenian population groups through
deportation and massacre constitutes a crime of genocide not subject to statutory limitations
within the defi nition of the Convention of December 9, 1948…The Young Turk governement
is guilty of this genocide with regard to the acts perpetrated between 1915 and
1917…The Armenian genocide is also an ‘international crime’ for which the Turkish state
must assume responsibility…” Permanent Peoples Tribunal (1985), A Crime of Silence. The
Armenian Genocide. London, p. 227.
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