The recognition of the Armenian genocide is the acknowledgement of the fact that the Ottoman Empire's systematic massacres and forced deportation of Armenians from 1915 to 1923, both during and after the First World War, constituted genocide.
Outside of Turkey and Azerbaijan, the historical consensus is that the Ottoman Empire's persecution of Armenians was a genocide.Academic consensus: Despite this consensus, some governments have been reticent to officially acknowledge the killings as genocide, due to political concerns regarding their relations with the Turkish government.
The Turkish government has demanded Armenia abandon genocide recognition efforts as a condition for normalizing diplomatic relations and lifting the ongoing Turkish-Azeri blockade of Armenia. In contrast, Armenia has consistently advocated for establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey and reopening the border without any preconditions.
, the governments and parliaments of 34 countries, including Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, the United States and Uruguay, have formally recognized the Armenian genocide, Uruguay having been the first nation to do so. The governments of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Pakistan deny the genocide.
Opinion polls In 2015, the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and Fondapol surveyed 31,172 people between the ages of 16 and 29 living in 31 countries, asking, "In your view, can we talk about genocide in relation to the massacre of the Armenians, by the Turks, in 1915?" 77% of respondents answered in the affirmative. The highest percentage was for France with 93% agreeing and the lowest percentage was for Turkey, with 33% agreeing.
International organizations
United Nations
The 1948 UN War Crimes Commission Report On May 15, 1948, the United Nations Economic and Social Council presented a 384-page report prepared by the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC), set up in London (October 1943) to collect and collate information on war crimes and war criminals. The report, presented by Lebanese representative Karim Azkoul, was a response to the request by the UN Secretary-General to make arrangements for "the collection and publication of information concerning human rights arising from trials of war criminals, quislings and traitors, and in particular from the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials." The report had been prepared by members of the legal staff of the commission. The report is highly topical in regard to the Armenian genocide, not only because it uses the 1915 events as a historic example, but also as a precedent to Articles 6 (c) and 5 (c) of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters, and thereby as a precursor to the then newly adopted UN Genocide Convention, differentiating between war crimes and crimes against humanity. By referring to the information collected during WWI and put forward by the 1919 Commission of Responsibilities, the report entitled "Information Concerning Human Rights Arising from Trials of War Criminals" used the Armenian case as a vivid example of crimes committed by a state against its own citizens.
The report also noted that while the Paris Peace Treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, did not include any reference to "laws of humanity", instead basing the charges on violations of "laws and customs of war", the Sèvres Peace Treaty with Turkey did so. In addition according to Armenian-Swedish historian Avedian Vahagn, Articles 226-228 also did, concerning customs of war (corresponding to Articles 228-230 of the Treaty of Versailles), the Sèvres Treaty also contained an additional Article 230, obviously in compliance with the Allied ultimatum of May 24, 1915, in regard to "crimes [committed] against humanity and civilization".
The 1985 UN Genocide Report, the "Whitaker Report" In 1985, the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities received a report from Special Rapporteur and Sub-Commission member Benjamin Whitaker (United Kingdom) entitled Revised and Updated Report on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (commonly known as The Whitaker Report), in which the systematic Ottoman massacre of Armenians during World War I was cited as meeting the criteria for the UN definition of genocide and as one of the genocides of the 20th century. His report was received and noted by a resolution at the 38th session of the Sub-Commission in 1985.
Catholic Church In 2015, Pope Francis said that the Armenian genocide was "considered the first genocide of the 20th century." The word was not used again, due to strong Turkish backlash, until June 2016, when he reaffirmed and solidified his stance on it constituting a genocide and strongly condemned the enduring denial of the genocide. Turkey responded by accusing the Pope of having a "crusader mentality" against the country. The Vatican strongly denied this, claiming that the Pope had actually called for reconciliation between Armenians and Turks.
International Association of Genocide Scholars In 1997, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) passed a resolution unanimously recognizing the Ottoman massacres of Armenians as genocide.The Armenian Genocide Resolution Unanimously Passed By The Association of Genocide Scholars of North America , The Armenian Genocide Resolution was unanimously passed at the Association of Genocide Scholars' conference in Montreal on June 13, 1997.Open letter to President Obama calling for acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide , website of the IAGS, March 7, 2009. p. 2
International Center for Transitional Justice In February 2002, an independent legal opinion commissioned by Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission and published by the International Center for Transitional Justice concluded that the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915–1918 were a genocide, but that no legal consequences flowed from this fact because genocide was only criminalized in international law after the ratification of the Genocide Convention.
In 2007, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity wrote a letter signed by 53 Nobel laureates re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.Nobel Laureates Call For Armenian–Turkish Reconciliation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, April 10, 2007 Wiesel's organization also asserted that Turkish acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide would create no legal "basis for reparations or territorial claims", anticipating Turkish anxieties that it could prompt financial or territorial claims.
European Parliament On April 15, 2015, the European Parliament backed a motion that calls the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces a genocide and urged for a restoration of diplomatic relations, days after Pope Francis's message triggered an angry reaction in Turkey for using the same term.Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Turkey): 12 April 2015, Press Release Regarding the Statements Delivered During the Liturgy in Vatican on April 12, 2015 It had previously done so in 1987, 2000, 2002 and 2005.
The European Parliament commended the message the pontiff had delivered.European Parliament votes to call 1915 Armenian killings genocide. Reuters, April 15, 2015.European Parliament Urges Turkey to Recognize Armenian Genocide. The New York Times, April 15, 2015. Prior to the vote, Turkish president Erdoğan declared that "Turkey will ignore any decision by the European parliament", and that "I personally don't bother about a defence because [Turks] don't carry a stain or a shadow like genocide".
Council of Europe The Council of Europe passed a resolution on the Armenian genocide on May 14, 2001, which commits only the members who signed it, and appeals "to all the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to take the necessary steps for the recognition of the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century."
American Jewish organizations On November 7, 1989, the Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution on recognition of the Armenian genocide.
In 2007 the Anti-Defamation League declared the following press statement:
In 2014 the American Jewish Committee recognized the Armenian genocide as a historical fact.AJC Pays Tribute to Memories of Victims of the Meds Yeghern ajc.org, Press ReleaseTurkey's DC Envoy Angered by Jewish Group's Genocide Recognition , Asbarez News
In October 2015, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs published a resolution calling on the U.S. government to recognize the World War I-era Turkish massacres of Armenians as a genocide.Resolution on Armenian Genocide , Jewish Council for Public Affairs, October 16, 2015. International resolution, adopted at the 2015 JCPA Town Hall. jewishpublicaffairs.org, Press Release
Central Council of Jews in Germany In April 2015, the Central Council of Jews in Germany called on the German government to recognize the World War I mass murder of over one million Armenians in what was then the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. "One hundred years ago, the government of the Ottoman Empire ordered the deportation of one million Armenians. They were murdered directly, or died of starvation and dehydration in the desert," Central Council President Josef Schuster told the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. He added: "These terrible events should be called what they were: a genocide." Schuster said the Armenian genocide later served Adolf Hitler and his Nazis as a blueprint for the Holocaust.German Jewish leader calls for recognition of Armenian 'genocide'. World Jewish Congress, Wed, April 15, 2015.Völkermord an den Armeniern; Zentralrat der Juden: Es war ein Genozid. Der Tagesspiegel, April 15, 2015.
Other Other organizations which have recognized the Armenian genocide include: World Council of Churches European Green Party Mercosur Parliament Latin American Parliament Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy European Alliance of YMCAs Andean Parliament Centrist Democrat International Central American Parliament Global Greens Permanent Peoples' Tribunal Human Rights Association (Turkey) Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey)
Parliaments and governments Turkey continues to insist that the mass killings of 1915 were not a genocide, a fact which many Europeans take as casting doubt on the Turkish nation's commitment to human rights, causing them to oppose European Union membership a stance for which Turkish-Armenian intellectual Hrant Dink publicly issued condemnation to some countries before he was assassinated in 2007.
Countries
On May 24, 1915, during World War I, the Allied Powers (the United Kingdom, France and Russia) jointly issued a statement in which they said that for approximately a month, the Kurdish and Turkish populations of Armenia had been massacring Armenians, with the connivance and often assistance of Ottoman authorities, and that the Allied Powers would hold all officers of the Ottoman Government implicated in such crimes personally responsible for crimes against humanity.Original telegram sent by the Department of State, Washington in 1915, containing the French, British and Russian joint declaration. R.G. 59, 867.4016/67Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution 106th Congress, 2nd Session, House of RepresentativesAffirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution (Introduced in House of Representatives) 109th Congress, 1st Session, H.RES.316 , June 14, 2005. September 15, 2005, House Committee/Subcommittee:International Relations actions. Status: Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 40–7.