International recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the moral limits of political utilitarianism
Speaking in the National Assembly on 13 August, Civil Contract MP Arman Yeghoyan stated that the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide had become an object of international bargaining and asked what its ultimate purpose was, given the substantial resources already expended on it. The demand that the objectives and outcomes of state policy be assessed is entirely legitimate in itself. Yet this framing conflates two different questions: how effective Armenia’s policy was, and whether seeking recognition made sense at all. While the first question requires serious analysis, even a well-founded negative answer would not, in itself, render recognition meaningless.
The policy of securing international recognition of the Armenian Genocide was not a commercial transaction expected to yield tangible benefits for Armenia. Its purpose was to officially call the crime by its proper name, restore the dignity of the victims, narrow the space for denial, and embed historical truth in decisions adopted by governments and parliaments, educational programmes, and public memory. The international politics of memory is also linked to the prevention of mass atrocities: this is why United Nations documents treat remembrance of the victims, respect for their dignity, and the prevention of genocide as interconnected tasks.
Even from a utilitarian perspective, the outcome cannot be regarded as negligible. Recognition by dozens of states carried the Armenian Genocide beyond the confines of Armenian memory, substantially reduced the scope for portraying it as a ‘dispute among historians’, increased the reputational costs of denial, and created a political and normative foundation for the protection of cultural heritage, scholarly and educational work, and potential legal claims. It also became one of the issues around which the Republic of Armenia and the Diaspora united.
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At the same time, the limits of what has been achieved must be acknowledged. An international norm is no substitute for material power, nor is it a self-executing legal mechanism. What should, therefore, be assessed is not the value of international recognition, but the consistency and effectiveness of state policy in this field: how clearly its objectives have been formulated, to what extent the measures undertaken contribute to their attainment, and how the results achieved are used to advance the interests of the Republic of Armenia and the whole nation.
The fact that the states that recognised the Armenian Genocide were also guided by their own interests does not diminish the significance of their decisions. States do not act out of altruism; the essence of diplomacy lies in identifying a durable convergence of interests. Rather than accusing friendly countries of political manipulation, one should first express gratitude to the parliamentarians, public officials, and civil-society figures who promoted the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and, often in the face of political pressure, adopted the relevant decisions. Political expediency does not turn a historically justified decision into a false one. The task of Armenian diplomacy was not to seek partners willing to act without regard to their own interests, but to align the objective of international recognition with the values and political interests of the states concerned.
Chronologically, the process of international recognition began long before the establishment of the Republic of Armenia and, therefore, cannot be reduced to the political circumstances that later developed around Armenian statehood. Uruguay took the first such step as early as 1965, while the European Parliament adopted the relevant resolution in 1987, when the Republic of Armenia did not yet exist. The process was initiated through the efforts of genocide survivors, their descendants, Armenian communities, international scholars, and human-rights advocates. Independent Armenia did not create this agenda; it inherited it and contributed to the development of an already established national and international movement. The recognising states undoubtedly had interests of their own, but the Armenian side succeeded in aligning them with the demand for historical justice. This is precisely the joint achievement of Armenian diplomacy and the Diaspora.
The issue must also be considered in constitutional and legal terms. The Armenian Genocide was institutionalised in Armenia’s political agenda during the Soviet period: through the efforts of the All-national Movement, on 22 November 1988, the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR adopted the Law on the Condemnation of the 1915 Genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. This political and legal position was subsequently enshrined in the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Armenia. Whatever political discomfort representatives of Civil Contract may feel towards this foundational document, paragraph 11 states: «The Republic of Armenia stands in support of the task of achieving international recognition of the 1915 Genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.» It is telling that this provision became unacceptable to the champions of the «Velvet Revolution» only after defeat in the war and the surrender of Artsakh. It should also be recalled that the preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia takes as its basis «the fundamental principles of the Armenian Statehood and the nation-wide objectives enshrined in the Declaration on the Independence of Armenia». A member of the National Assembly ought to know that the commitment to pursue international recognition of the Armenian Genocide forms part of the political and legal foundations of Armenian statehood. It is therefore unbecoming to portray the recognition policy as an incidental or temporary political campaign which the state may initiate or terminate at the dictates of political expediency.
Nor is Mr Yeghoyan’s assertion that the Armenian Genocide was absent from the foreign-policy agenda of the Republic of Armenia during Levon Ter-Petrosian’s presidency consistent with the facts. The draft Statement of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of 14 April 1995 was coordinated, almost in real time, with an Armenian official; if necessary, his identity can be ascertained from Konstantin Zatulin, the principal author of the draft. Even if we accept that the first president’s involvement in the international recognition of the Genocide was more limited than that of his two successors, this does not alter the substance of the matter. Not treating a given policy direction as a foreign-policy priority at a particular stage is fundamentally different from questioning the legitimacy of that direction itself.
In the current regional context, this framing of the issue by a Civil Contract representative appears not to be the result of an impartial reassessment of the foreign policy of the Armenian government, but a consequence of external coercion. This is evidenced by Turkey’s persistent unwillingness to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia and open the land border even after the de facto «resolution» of the Karabakh conflict. The absence of diplomatic relations and the closed land border provide grounds for arguing that Turkey continues to use the prospect of normalisation as a means of pressure, seeking to extract further concessions from the Armenian government. These include abandoning efforts to advance the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide and removing the issue from Armenia’s domestic political agenda. International experience, however, demonstrates that the normalisation of relations and the preservation of historical memory are not mutually exclusive. Durable reconciliation requires neither the renunciation of historical memory nor the consigning of the past to oblivion, but a willingness on both sides to confront the past honestly.
The Armenian government’s abandonment of efforts to advance international recognition of the Armenian Genocide did not depoliticise the issue or diminish its geopolitical significance. Israel offers a revealing example. Amid deteriorating relations with Turkey, the Netanyahu government approved a resolution recognising the Armenian Genocide, using it as a means of political pressure on Ankara. Later, following objections from Azerbaijan, the scheduled vote was removed from the Knesset’s agenda. Recognition thus served as an instrument in the confrontation with Ankara, while its subsequent legislative enshrinement was sacrificed to the preservation of strategic relations with Baku. From the very beginning of the process, the Armenian government did not maintain even the posture of a neutral observer, publicly interpreting the Israeli government’s initiative through the prism of the ‘weaponisation’ of the Armenian Genocide issue. Yet this position did not depoliticise the issue of recognition internationally; it merely ceded the initiative to other states, making its subsequent political use contingent upon their interests. Israel’s example demonstrates that what warrants scrutiny is not international recognition of the Genocide as such, but the motives behind and consequences of the Armenian government’s withdrawal from this policy agenda.
By asking, ‘What, then, did this give us?’, Civil Contract shifts the discussion onto a different plane. Instead of assessing what Armenia lost by abandoning an active position, one is forced to prove the practical utility of recognition itself. In domestic political terms, this is cynical political utilitarianism; in foreign-policy terms, it amounts to serving Turkey’s national interests.
International recognition of the Armenian Genocide did not, of course, imply the realisation of the idea of Wilsonian Armenia. It did, however, contribute to the formal international affirmation of historical truth, the narrowing of the space for denial, and the creation of political and diplomatic potential for further action. How effectively Armenia has used that political potential remains a matter for debate. Political pragmatism cannot be built on historical amnesia or on relinquishing, under external pressure, what has already been achieved. It requires greater clarity of objectives and a more consistent state policy.
Armen MARTIROSYAN
Member of the Supreme Council and National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia (1990-1999)
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia
This illustration was created using artificial intelligence technology