Reply to Baroness Shreela Flather

Re: your question and proposal to the House of Lords -16.06.2011
House of Lords
London SW1 OPW

01/07/2011

Dear Baroness Shreela Flather,

The Ataturk Society of the UK has been astonished and dismayed to learn about
your question and proposal regarding a possible timetable for the British
Government to recognize the so called Armenian Genocide at the House of Lords on
the 16th of June 2011. Whilst we appreciate your “right” to ask questions as a
member of the House of Lords (not as an elected representative), we would like
to bring the following facts to your attention regarding this matter.

First of all can we remind you that there is no legal justification for such a
recognition unlike the Holocaust or Bosnian massacres.

As a historical event, it is a fact that Suzanne and Gregoire Krikorian took
their case to the European Court of Justice in 2003 in reference to the so called
Armenian genocide, and demanded moral and material compensation. However, they
lost this court case on the 17th December 2003 and were ordered to pay the court
expenses of 30,000 Euro for unfounded charges.

This issue began with the passing of an ill conceived resolution C-190 of the
European Parliament on 20th July 1987 that Turkey cannot become a member of EEC unless she recognizes the so called Armenian Genocide!

Twelve years later, in 1999, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit was
negotiating with the EEC regarding Turkish candidacy and when the discussions
were strained, the Turkish P.M. was invited to Helsinki talks. The Helsinki
European Council decision was to officially invite Turkey into the E.U. Since
than Turkey has been a candidate member and has many agreements with the EU,
going back to 1963 Ankara Association Agreement).

This invitation obviously did not go the way the Armenian Diaspora wanted and
they opened a court case against:

*         the European Parliament
*         the European Union Association Council
*         the European Commission

at the European Court of Justice, with reference to the European Parliament’s
resolution no. C-190, demanding that Turkey acknowledges so called Armenian
Genocide before being offered membership status, otherwise EU’s contractual
status would be impaired and therefore insisting on “Responsibility from the
European Union outside of it’s commitments and without any judicial
justification”.

We would like to remind you that this court case was rejected by the First
Division of the European Court of Justice on December 17, 2003 under decision
number T-346/03, confirming that there is no legally accepted justification for
so called ‘Armenian genocide’.

Still unsatisfied the Armenian Diaspora applied to the “Court of Appeals” for
the repeal of the referred decision. This application was heard by the Fourth
Division of the European Court of Justice at the session dated 17.04.2004. It
was rejected again under the clause No. C-18/04 and the Armenians were charged
to pay the court expenses of 30,000 Euros.

Dear Baroness Flather, we would like to ask you to reconsider your question to
the House of Lords in the light of the evidence presented above and before
taking a stance against the decisions of the European Court of Justice which is
an authorised Court set up to deal with these kind of cases and is officially
recognized by the UK Parliament.

Turkish people have a right to request that you re-address the House of Lords
regarding your question and put right the inaccuracies or injustices done to the
Turkish Nation. We consider your action as biased and prejudiced, and also
lacking in informed knowledge and the right facts of the matter.

Yours sincerely,
Betula Nelson
Foreign Media Coordinator
Ataturk Society UK
London

Extracts from the European Court of Justice decision number T-346/03;
Clause 25.
Secondly, as regards the requirement that the applicants must have suffered
actual and certain damage, the applicants clearly confined themselves in their
application to relying in general terms on non-material damage caused to the
Armenian community, without giving the least indication as to the nature or
extent of the damage which they consider they had suffered individually.
Therefore the applicants have supplied no information that would enable the
Court to find that the applicants in fact suffered actual and certain damage
themselves (see, to that effect, Case T-99/98 Hameico Stuttgart and Others v
Council and Commission [2003] ECR II-2195, paragraphs 68 and 69).

Clause 21.
As regards the alleged breach of fundamental rights (see paragraph 10 above), it
is sufficient to note that the applicants merely claim that such a breach took
place, without explaining how that follows from the conduct of the defendant
institutions complained of in this case.

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Original  reply in Turkish here by Refik Mor