Recognition of the Armenian Genocide

Armenian Genocide recognition is the formal acceptance that the systematic massacres and forced deportation of Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 constituted genocide. The consensus of historians and academic institutions on Holocaust and genocide studies recognize the Armenian Genocide. However, despite the recognition of the genocidal character of the massacre of Armenians in legitimate scholarship as well as in civil society, at the governmental level nations have been reticent to officially acknowledge the killings as a genocide on account of political concern over their relations with the Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Imperial authorities which perpetrated the genocide. The governments of Turkey and its close ally Azerbaijan are the only ones that directly deny the historical factuality of the Armenian Genocide, and both are adamantly opposed to the recognition of the genocide by other nations, threatening economic and diplomatic consequences to recognizers.

As of 2017^[update], governments and parliaments of 26 countries, including Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, as well as 45 states out of 50 of the United States, have recognized the events as a genocide.

In 1985, the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities received a report from Special Rapporteur and Sub-Commission member Benjamin Whitaker (United Kingdom) entitled Revised and Updated Report on the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (commonly known as The Whitaker Report), in which the Ottoman systematic massacre of Armenians during the World War I was cited as meeting the criteria for the UN definition of genocide and as one of the genocides of the 20th century. His report was received and noted by a resolution at the 38th session of the Sub-Commission in 1985. (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6, July 2, 1985)

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