Armenians: More pressure on Turkey
Reformatorisch Dagblad
Dutch daily newspaper
23 April 2008
By Political Editor
THE HAGUE – The Netherlands should give more support to those who want an
open discussion on the Armenian Genocide in and outside of Turkey.
The Netherlands should also more strongly emphasise the necessity of
Genocide recognition in the process of the negotiations for accession of
Turkey to the European Union.
This is written in a petition that the Federation of Armenian Organisations
in the Netherlands (FAON) offered Tuesday to the Dutch parliament. Tomorrow
it will be the 93rd anniversary of the deportation and annihilation of about
1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey still refuses to
recognise the massacres as genocide.
The Dutch parliament indeed recognised the Genocide by adopting the motion
submitted by Mr. A. Rouvoet in 2004. The government however should work out
more seriously the conditions drawn up in the motion, according to the
Armenians. For example the government should keep harking on the issue of
human rights within the framework of the accession negotiations to European
Union.
The Armenians rectified on Tuesday the misconception, that the recognition
of the black past would not be part of the conditions for the accession of
Turkey to the European Union. That is in fact one of the conditions, they
emphasised. Minister Bot has in the past pointed out in the parliament that
the recognition of the Genocide is implied in the condition of the so-called
³good neighbourhood².
In addition to the petition the FAON also handed over to the Parliament the
Dutch translation of the book ³The First Holocaust² by the journalist Robert
Fisk, in which the correspondent of the British newspaper The Independent
draws attention to the Genocide of the Armenians.