Expert: France's attempts to tarnish Türkiye, Azerbaijan doomed to fail

Professor of International Law at Türkiye's Galatasaray University Akif Emre Oktem has said that attempts by France to tarnish the reputations of Türkiye and Azerbaijan by spreading historical falsehoods are destined to fail.  

“As opposed to France, our countries have no events in history that we need to be ashamed of,” he told Azertag, Caliber.Az reports.

The scholar specifically called the claims made by France and Armenia about the persecution of ethnic Armenians in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan "absurd".

"No violence allegedly perpetrated by Azerbaijan against the civilians has been recorded, and this is confirmed by reports from international organisations. The Armenians left these territories voluntarily! Therefore, any lawsuits filed in international forums, whether at the UN or the European Court of Human Rights, will receive the same response – people left Azerbaijan on their own, and this imposes no obligations on Baku," the expert noted.

As for the attacks from Yerevan and Paris against Ankara over the events of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire, the scholar reminded of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights. 

"One of the key principles of law is that legislative and legal acts do not have retroactive effect, meaning that events that occurred before the adoption of such documents cannot fall under their jurisdiction. This means that no court in the world has the authority to consider a lawsuit concerning the events of 1915. All other claims are simply political theatrics," the Turkish expert said.

He further pointed out that there is no evidence to support the accusation of genocide against Armenians, and this is corroborated by archival documents.

The professor added that even if France or other anti-Turkish forces somehow succeed in overturning the principle of non-retroactivity of law, it will ultimately harm the Western countries themselves. 

"Türkiye has nothing to fear, whereas Western countries have so many 'dark stains' in their history that, in the end, it will be them who will have to answer for bloody crimes. This includes France's violent actions in Algeria, as well as the crimes committed in British and Italian colonies. In other words, Türkiye must never fear an international court," he stated.

Oktem drew a parallel with football, noting that Armenians and their supporters, in terms of anti-Turkish and anti-Azerbaijani claims, are merely "playing to the stands."

"The Western countries will be the first to oppose any revision of the principles of international law," the scholar added.

By Naila Huseynova