{"id":37422,"date":"2011-07-08T08:11:51","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T05:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=37422"},"modified":"2014-01-06T13:51:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-06T11:51:14","slug":"reply-to-baroness-shreela-flather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/07\/08\/reply-to-baroness-shreela-flather\/","title":{"rendered":"Reply to Baroness Shreela Flather"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Re: your question and proposal to the House of Lords -16.06.2011<\/strong>
\nHouse of Lords
\nLondon SW1 OPW<\/p>\n

01\/07\/2011<\/p>\n

Dear Baroness Shreela Flather,<\/p>\n

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

First of all can we remind you that there is no legal justification for such a<\/strong>
\nrecognition unlike the Holocaust or Bosnian massacres.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a historical event, it is a fact that Suzanne and Gregoire Krikorian took
\ntheir case to the European Court of Justice in 2003 in reference to the so called
\nArmenian genocide, and demanded moral and material compensation. However, they
\nlost this court case on the 17th December 2003 and were ordered to pay the court
\nexpenses of 30,000 Euro for unfounded charges.<\/p>\n

This issue began with the passing of an ill conceived resolution C-190 of the<\/strong>
\nEuropean Parliament on 20th July 1987 that Turkey cannot become a member of EEC <\/strong>unless she recognizes the so called Armenian Genocide!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twelve years later, in 1999, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit was
\nnegotiating with the EEC regarding Turkish candidacy and when the discussions
\nwere strained, the Turkish P.M. was invited to Helsinki talks. The Helsinki
\nEuropean Council decision was to officially invite Turkey into the E.U. Since
\nthan Turkey has been a candidate member and has many agreements with the EU,
\ngoing back to 1963 Ankara Association Agreement).<\/p>\n

This invitation obviously did not go the way the Armenian Diaspora wanted and
\nthey opened a court case against:<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the European Parliament
\n*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the European Union Association Council
\n*\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0the European Commission<\/p>\n

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

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

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

Dear Baroness Flather, we would like to ask you to reconsider your question to
\nthe House of Lords in the light of the evidence presented above and before
\ntaking a stance against the decisions of the European Court of Justice which is
\nan authorised Court set up to deal with these kind of cases and is officially
\nrecognized by the UK Parliament.<\/p>\n

Turkish people have a right to request that you re-address the House of Lords
\nregarding your question and put right the inaccuracies or injustices done to the
\nTurkish Nation. We consider your action as biased and prejudiced, and also
\nlacking in informed knowledge and the right facts of the matter.<\/p>\n

Yours sincerely,
\nBetula Nelson<\/strong>
\nForeign Media Coordinator
\nAtaturk Society UK
\nLondon<\/p>\n

Extracts from the European Court of Justice decision number T-346\/03;
\nClause 25.
\nSecondly, as regards the requirement that the applicants must have suffered
\nactual and certain damage, the applicants clearly confined themselves in their
\napplication to relying in general terms on non-material damage caused to the
\nArmenian community, without giving the least indication as to the nature or
\nextent of the damage which they consider they had suffered individually.
\nTherefore the applicants have supplied no information that would enable the
\nCourt to find that the applicants in fact suffered actual and certain damage
\nthemselves (see, to that effect, Case T-99\/98 Hameico Stuttgart and Others v
\nCouncil and Commission [2003] ECR II-2195, paragraphs 68 and 69).<\/p>\n

Clause 21.
\nAs regards the alleged breach of fundamental rights (see paragraph 10 above), it
\nis sufficient to note that the applicants merely claim that such a breach took
\nplace, without explaining how that follows from the conduct of the defendant
\ninstitutions complained of in this case.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Original \u00a0reply in Turkish here by Refik Mor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":37426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6375,1779,5168,6376,6374],"class_list":["post-37422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question","tag-baroness-shreela-flather","tag-european-parliament","tag-house-of-lords","tag-suzanne-and-gregoire-krikorian","tag-the-ataturk-society-of-the-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}