Baroness Cox: British Government should recognise Armenian Genocide

Baroness Cox writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her oral question on the Armenian Genocide

I am asking HMG whether it will reconsider its position on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide – sadly, without any hope of a change in the British government's consistent policy of refusal to acknowledge the truth.
However, the question is timely for three reasons:

1. The recent recognition by the Swedish Parliament of the state-organised massacres of 1.5 million Armenians by Turkish authorities, beginning in 1915, as genocide – the latest in a long line of Parliaments and other official bodies, such as the Vatican, to do so.

2. The publication last October of 'Was there an Armenian Genocide? Geoffrey Robertson QC's opinion with reference to Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents which show how British ministers, Parliament and people have been misled'.

3. This year marks the 95th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide and recognition is long overdue. Every genocide which remains unrecognised is, in effect, condoned – and can serve as an encouragement to other potential perpetrators of subsequent genocides. This was most infamously illustrated by Hitler's reference to the Armenian Genocide before he embarked on the extension of the Holocaust in Poland: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"