Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the timely motion put forward by my colleague, Senator Daly. We have just passed the centenary of that awful atrocity. The New York Timesrecently noted that Armenians say that up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically slaughtered in eastern Turkey through mass killings, forced relocations and starvation. Many historians and legal scholars have called the Armenian killings genocide, including Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish jurist who came up with the term in 1944. The Armenians have lobbied extensively for this to be accepted. I know that the genocide will be observed by Armenians worldwide.

It is interesting that the European Parliament has passed a motion referring to it as genocide and calling on Turkey to acknowledge this very fact. Speaking in the European Parliament, Elmar Brok, a German MEP, underlined what he called the moral obligation to recognise and commemorate such massacres. He said "my own people committed genocides" and that "hundreds of thousands of Armenians died at the hands of the Ottoman empire's henchmen". It is particularly appropriate not just because it is the centenary but also because of what is happening. We just had a discussion here with the Kenyan ambassador about the genocide taking place across the Middle East. We should send a strong signal that genocide is unacceptable. In recognising this, we are putting it up to Turkey to also recognise it. If countries fail or are in denial about this, it is unacceptable and does not nothing to counter extremist, radical thinking which a lot of this emanates from. I am happy to support the motion.