By Kristina Kukolja The Australian government says it won’t be officially represented in Yerevan next month at the centenary commemorations of the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks.<\/p>\n The commemoration of what is widely referred to as the “Armenian genocide” coincides with the centenary of the Anzac landing in Gallipoli, an occasion expecting a high level delegation led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott.<\/p>\n The “Armenian genocide” \u2013 terminology rejected by Turkey \u2013 is the cause of long-standing tensions between the two countries.<\/p>\n The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told SBS that the Australian Government would not be sending a representative to Yerevan.<\/p>\n The Department wouldn\u2019t confirm whether Australia was invited to attend official events in Yerevan and no further comment was provided regarding the reason behind the decision.<\/p>\n Vache Kahramanian from the Armenian National Committee said it was “Ankara’s ongoing gag order on Australia on the issue of the Armenian genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n “We’ve heard from many members of Parliament throughout the country that Turkey continues to use Gallipoli and the centenary of Anzac Day as a bargaining chip to ensure that Australia does not formally recognise the Armenian genocide,” he said.<\/p>\n Diplomatic cables between Canberra and Ankara obtained under Freedom of Information laws showed that last year the matter arose in a letter from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to her then-Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu.<\/p>\n In April, Ms Bishop wrote that “recognising the important interests at stake for both countries, I assure you that there has been no decision to change the long-standing position of successive Australian governments on this issue”.<\/p>\n “The Australian government does not\u2026 recognise these events as genocide,” she said.<\/p>\n The diplomatic cables also made reference to a statement attributed to Treasurer Joe Hockey by organisers of an Armenian-Australian community commemoration in Sydney last year.<\/p>\n Mr Hockey, who is of Palestinian-Armenian descent, did not attend.<\/p>\n SBS has sighted a letter the organisers said was instead sent by the Treasurer.<\/p>\n Part of it read that \u201cthere is simply no other word for what happened to the Armenian people of Ottoman Turkey\u201d.<\/p>\n Ertunc Ozen, from the Australian-Turkish Advocacy Alliance, said it was “inappropriate for an Australian or any other government or minister in that government to be making declarations or affirmations about foreign historical events\u201d.<\/p>\n One of the diplomatic cables revealed that Mr Hockey’s statement received a lot of press coverage in Turkey.<\/p>\n Others detailed a flurry of diplomatic activity between Australian and Turkish officials in both countries, in the weeks after the letter emerged.<\/p>\n Several pages of the Turkish response had been completely redacted.<\/p>\n “The Turkish government is well within its rights to want some assurance about the position Australia does or does not take about this,” Mr Ozen said.<\/p>\n The diplomatic documents also showed the Turkish government’s apparent concern about the Armenian diaspora’s plans for centenary commemorations this year.<\/p>\n They quote President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying the Armenian diaspora was “desiring to reflect the 1915 events in a particular and one-sided way, to take them out of their historical reality, and to turn them into a political campaign”.<\/p>\n In the cables, Mr Erdogan went on to say that “Turkey needed to be prepared to ensure those events were marked in what it calls “an objective, scholarly and realistic way\u201d.<\/p>\n Armenia put the number of its people killed by the Turks between 1915 and 1922 at around 1.5 million.<\/p>\n It said many more were forcibly deported from territories held by Ottoman Turk forces.<\/p>\n Historians tell of other minorities, the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs and Greeks, as being targeted.<\/p>\n These groups want the modern Turkish state to recognise its predecessor’s actions as genocide.<\/p>\n While there is no international consensus on the matter, more than 20 countries have officially recognised the Ottoman Turk killings of Armenians and other ethnic groups as genocide.<\/p>\n Australia isn’t among the countries to officially adopt the term \u201cArmenian genocide\u201d at a national level, although two state Parliaments have done so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australia won’t be officially represented in Yerevan next month at the centenary commemorations of the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. By Kristina Kukolja http:\/\/www.sbs.com.au\/ The Australian government says it won’t be officially represented in Yerevan next month at the centenary commemorations of the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. 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