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ANKARA: =?unknown?q?Elekda=F0=3A?= ICJ Involvement Will Deal A Blow

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  • ANKARA: =?unknown?q?Elekda=F0=3A?= ICJ Involvement Will Deal A Blow

    ELEKDAÐ: ICJ INVOLVEMENT WILL DEAL A BLOW TO ARMENIAN THESIS

    Today's Zaman
    Feb 5 2008
    Turkey

    It is time for Ankara to bring new perspective, organization and
    dynamism to the Armenian issue, according to veteran Turkish diplomat
    Þukru Elekdað.

    Elekdað, a deputy for the main opposition Republican People's Party
    (CHP), insists that Ankara should take the first step in this new
    direction by asking France to jointly take an almost decade-old French
    parliamentary decision recognizing the controversial World War I-era
    killings of Anatolian Armenians as genocide before the International
    Court of Justice (ICJ) to determine whether the century-old incidents
    can accurately be categorized as acts of genocide according to a
    related UN convention.

    Elekdað's first remarks on the issue came last week in the French
    capital following talks at the French parliament as part of a Turkish
    parliamentary delegation.

    The controversial decision bluntly stating that "France publicly
    recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915" was made in January 2001,
    leading Ankara to lodge strong protests with Paris, including the
    cancellation of a number of major projects with actual or potential
    French involvement.

    "We can go to the ICJ with France and ask whether the law adopted
    in France in 2001 is in compliance with the agreement in 1948 and
    whether the 1915 incidents constitute genocide," Elekdað was quoted
    as saying by the Anatolia news agency, in an apparent reference to
    the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime
    of Genocide. He noted that the delegation had shared this view with
    French lawmakers during their talks.

    Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered
    in orchestrated killings during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.

    Turkey categorically rejects these claims, saying that 300,000
    Armenians, along with at least as many Turks, died in civil strife
    that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in
    eastern Anatolia and sided with the Russian troops who were invading
    Ottoman territory.

    Elekdað, a former Foreign Ministry undersecretary and also a former
    ambassador to the US, speaking with Today's Zaman on Monday, elaborated
    on his remarks. First of all, he made clear that it was not possible to
    try the Ottoman Empire under the 1948 UN Convention, since a convention
    could not be implemented for incidents that took place prior to its
    adoption and the controversial killings referred as the incidents of
    1915 took place long before the adoption of the convention.

    "What would the authorized court rule if we assume that the UN
    Convention could be implemented retrospectively?" Elekdað asked. He
    answered by referring to a ruling back in February 2007 in which the
    ICJ exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for the mass slaughter
    of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia,
    but ruled that it failed to prevent a genocide. Key to the court's
    findings was its conclusion that no one in Serbia, or any official
    organ of the state, could be shown to have had the deliberate intention
    to "destroy in whole or in part" the Bosnian Muslim population --
    a critical element in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

    "According to this landmark ruling, a state cannot be held responsible
    for genocide if it had used the means it had in hand to prevent the
    genocide incident via showing the utmost effort and good will. ... On
    the other hand, the party that makes the genocide allegations must
    prove with 'absolute and undisputable' evidence that the perpetrator
    had not implemented necessary precautions with due diligence and that
    it committed the crime with the specific intent [dolus specialis],"
    Elekdað continued.

    "In light of these facts, the French parliament's decision in 2001
    is a typical sample of execution without trial," he added.

    What Turkey and France should ask the ICJ is whether the French
    parliament has the authority to make a decision about the Ottoman
    Empire according to the UN Convention and to ask whether the 1915
    incidents constituted genocide according to the same convention,
    he said.

    "It is obvious that the court will rule that the French parliament
    is not authorized to make such a decision, and it will also have to
    announce that the UN Convention cannot be implemented retrospectively
    due to the principle of legality. This means that the 1915 incidents
    cannot be described as genocide. If the ICJ makes such a ruling, then
    Armenia's genocide allegation will entirely collapse," Elekdað said.

    "If France avoids a joint application to the ICJ -- which is a big
    probability -- then a heavy blow will be dealt to the political and
    moral superiority of the Armenian thesis ... in the international
    arena. Such a development will also constitute a factor that will
    prevent or at least make more difficult conviction of our citizens
    on charges of denial of genocide and the making of parliamentary
    decisions about the 1915 incidents."

    --Boundary_(ID_h/9olUeHHp+jda4lK p1Q3g)--
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