3512) (Australian) Department Of Foreign Affairs And Trade Released Internal Communication Documents About The “Events Of 1915”

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia released internal communication documents about the “Events of 1915” under the Freedom of Information request made last month.

The letter requests DFAT to disclose “ANY” correspondence about “Armenian Genocide” and or “Armenian Massacres” from 1 January 2014 onwards. . .

The document which mostly consists of communications between the DFAT office in Canberra and the Ankara Embassy shows that (then) Prime Minister Erdogan’s Ambassador’s Summit remarks in February dominated the correspondence. In opening address, Erdogan made a special reference to 2015 as a year of “black propaganda” against Turkey.

The documents also show that DFAT had an interest in the Perincek vs. Switzerland case. In one comment it says “the decision of European Court of Human Rights provides some relief to Turkey in countering the Armenian genocide allegations, but it still faces international political pressure which we would expect to increase in the lead-up to 2015.” The “unclassified” routine information paper also states that only 21 countries [out of 190] in the world recognises the events of 1915 as “genocide” and this does not include some countries with strong Armenian communities like Bulgaria, Brazil, Spain and Iceland.[To this list we can include : United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand]

The documents also includes Foreign Minister Julie Bishop’s letter to (then) Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on 15 May 2014. Ensuring that there has been no decision to change the long-standing position of successive Australian Governments on the issue, Ms Bishop states that “Australia “does not recognise these events as ‘genocide’.” The letter comes after the Turkish Community’s NSW Parliament protest in 2014 which gathered thousands to protest the motion NSW Parliament passed the previous year.

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DFAT internal communications on the Event of 1915

14/36534

11 December 2014

I hereby request, under the Freedom of Information Act (1982), copies of the following documents held by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade:

a) Correspondence, including, but not limited to, letters, emails, transcripts of phone conversations, diplomatic cables, between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and/or the Australian Foreign Minister and the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Australia which contains information on the "Armenian Genocide", "Armenian massacres", and "genocide" dating from 1 January 2014 onwards.

b) Correspondence, including, but not limited to, letters, emails, transcripts of phone conversations, diplomatic cables, between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, which contains information on the "Armenian Genocide", "Armenian massacres", and "genocide" dating from 1 January 2014 onwards.

c) Correspondence, including, but not limited to, letters, emails, transcripts of phone conversations, diplomatic cables, between the Department of Foreign Affairs and/or the Australian Foreign Minister and the Australian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, which contains information on the "Armenian Genocide", "Armenian massacres", and "genocide" dating from 1 January 2014 onwards.

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