gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari

Gündüz AKTAN
The Legal Approach to the Armenian Issue and the
Armenian Allegations in the light of International Law
(Speech made during the seminar entitled “Turkey and
the South Caucasus”, held at the Turkish Embassy in
London, October 2001)
Thank you, Chairman. You see, we Turks do not like legalities,
law, or the legal approach. Interestingly, Armenians have written
perhaps around 25,000 books, articles, pieces, but not a single one
on the legal aspect of this question.
Genocide is a key issue between Turkey on the one hand and
Armenia and Armenians on the other. That is really the main
obstacle of the Turkish-Armenian reconciliation on the
development of our relations. I am a member of the Turkish-
Armenian Reconciliation Commission and this is the real issue.
Several times, we discussed the legal aspect of this question, and
it might sound bizarre that the Armenians are not interested in the
legal aspect of this question. Yet genocide is a crime and it is the
highest crime in the hierarchy of crimes. Therefore, it should be
addressed from the legal point of view. Again, at the outset, I see
no other solution to this problem other than a kind of adjudication
- an international adjudication of this problem - because I know
from my experience, though short one, in this Commission that we
cannot really convince the Armenians that this was not a genocide
and the Armenians cannot convince us that this was a genocide.
Now, let me briefly touch upon the development of the concept
of genocide. As you know, this concept has been coined by
Professor Rafael Lemkin, a Polish scholar, during the Second World
War -well after the 1915-16 events. His concept of genocide was a
very broad one. According to Lemkin, genocide was the
annihilation of a minority, politically, economically, socially,
Gündüz Aktan
177