The Armenian Genocide

  • Recently, the US President officially recognised the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915-16 as an act of genocide.
  • The Armenian diaspora marks 24th April as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. 
  • India has not given formal recognition to the Armenian Genocide.
MEANING OF GENOCIDE
  • According to Article II of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Genocide of December 1948, genocide has been described as carrying out acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
  • Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer, coined the term “genocide” in 1943.
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
  • The Armenian Genocide is called the first genocide of the 20th century.
  • It refers to the systematic annihilation of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917.
  • After the First World War broke out in November 1914, the Ottoman Turks participated in the war, siding with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire.
  • The Ottoman Turks believed the Armenians would side with Russia in the war. This resulted in the Ottoman Turks engaging in a mass-removal campaign of Armenians from the border areas along the Eastern Front.
  • On 24th April, 1915, Ottoman Turkish government officials arrested and executed thousands of Armenian intellectuals. It was the start of the Armenian Genocide.
  • Armenian families, including small children, were forced to walk for days without food, water and shelter in the deserts of Syria and Arabia.
  • According to estimates, approximately 1.5 million Armenians died during the genocide, either in massacres and in killings, or from ill treatment, abuse and starvation.
TURKEY'S RESPONSE
  • This move would set back the already strained relationship between US and Turkey.
  • However, it won't have any legal effect.
  • Ties between the US and Turkey have been strained over a range of issues that include Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 defence systems, foreign policy differences with regard to Syria, human rights and other intersecting legal issues.
  • Turkey has acknowledged that atrocities were committed against Armenians, but denies it was a genocide. 
  • Turkey rejects the number of 1.5 million and claims that some 300,000 Armenians may have perished.

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