Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the Irish Government to officially recognise the Armenian Genocide ahead of the centenary commemoration of the genocide on Friday 24 April.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis week my colleague Aengus O Snodaigh TD tabled a Parliamentary Question calling on the Irish Government to officially recognise the Armenian Genocide, in its centenary year. The Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is on Friday 24 April.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reply he received was completely inadequate. It stated that the Irish Government has not, and will not, take a positon on the issue, unlike its position on other genocides in the 20th<\/sup> century, such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1985 a UN Committee Report agreed that what happened in against Armenians in 1915 met the criteria of a genocide, the European Parliament has passed motions recognising it as genocide, and 22 countries have officially recognised it as genocide, including 12 EU countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is overwhelming oral, written, and diplomatic evidence that the actions of the Ottoman Empire against Armenians was genocide. If we do not accept what happened in the past we cannot learn from the mistakes and move on. Collectively we must ensure that we oppose the manipulation of history and the silence of the international community adds to the hurt of the Armenian people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cI was disappointed at the stance taken today by Government parties who voted against a motion calling on the Government to officially recognise the Genocide at the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee. Their majority on the Committee ensured the motion didn\u2019t get passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cDenial harms the victims and their survivors, and many have called Turkey\u2019s denial a double killing, as it strives to eradicate and kill the memory of the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am calling on the Irish Government to change its policy of refusing to take a formal position and to recognise this awful genocide of a suspected 1.5 million people on its 100th<\/sup> anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland quite rightly recognises all who suffered during World War One. The genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire needs to be part of that recognition and the historical record. Recognition is essential to healing and closing this open wound, and is part of the difficult work on improving relations between Armenia and Turkey.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the Irish Government to officially recognise the Armenian Genocide ahead of the centenary commemoration of the genocide on Friday 24 April. Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: \u201cThis week my colleague Aengus O Snodaigh TD tabled a Parliamentary Question calling on the Irish Government to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[171,172,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-armenia","category-genocide","category-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2144,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}