Senate Floor: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Mr. President, at a time when we are witnessing the devastating consequences of ethnic and sectarian division in places such as Iraq and Darfur, I believe it is vital to recognize the efforts of those who work to promote peace and reconciliation. In that spirit, I wish to commend the 53 Nobel laureates who signed an appeal by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity in support of "tolerance, contact and cooperation between Turks and Armenians." In their appeal, the laureates call on both Turks and Armenians to take the steps necessary to open the Turkish-Armenian border, generate confidence through civil society cooperation, improve official contacts, and allow basic freedoms. As part of this commitment, the laureates call on Turkey to end all forms of discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities and abolish Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. This provision has been used to take legal action against those who speak out about the Armenian genocide, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and recently murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. There is no question that article 301 contributed to the toxic political environment that led up to Mr. Dink's assassination in January.

The laureates also note that "Turks and Armenians have a huge gap in perceptions over the Armenian Genocide." To address this chasm of understanding, they call for further study and dissemination of a report prepared by the International Center for Transitional Justice. That impartial analysis of the massacres perpetrated against Armenians in the early 20th century concluded that the killings "can be said to include all the elements of the crime of genocide . . ." This finding was corroborated by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, which issued its own statement in 1997 to reaffirm "that the mass murder of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 is a case of genocide which conforms to the statutes of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide." The existence of these independent evaluations of the Armenian genocide and relevant international law should provide an opportunity for both countries to accept the verdict of history and move forward.

Mr. President, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has unanimously passed S. Res. 65, a resolution echoing many of the sentiments expressed by the laureates and honoring the life of Hrant Dink, a leading proponent of Turkish-Armenian reconciliation up until the time of his brutal murder. It is my hope that the full Senate will adopt this important measure without further delay.

I congratulate the Wiesel Foundation for its work to produce this important statement and request consent that it be printed in the Record. I hope that the words of these Nobel laureates will encourage the people of both nations to recognize and ultimately transcend the legacy of the Armenian genocide. Once this occurs, I have every confidence that the people of Armenia and Turkey will be able to rebuild the ties between their countries and forge a new, enduring peace.