From the Pages of History: Labour Party's protests against the treatment of Armenia‏

1920: Labour Party's protests against the treatment of Armenia by the Allied Powers

  
The Manchester Guardian (The Guardian)
Friday, 27 February 1920
p. 7 c. 3

LABOUR PROPOSAL FOR ARMENIA
(FRANCE AND CILICIA)

The Advisory Committee of the Labour party on International questions have issued a long resolution in which they state that the Labour party protests against the treatment of Armenia by the Allied Powers.

In the opinion of the Labour party the minimum programme which the Allied Governments are bound in honour to carry out includes: -

1. The entire region known as Turkish Armenia must be released absolutely from Turkish sovereignty.

2. The best settlement would have been to place the whole of this region for a term of years and under strict conditions under the control of a single mandatory Power, charged to maintain religious and racial equality between the different elements of the population, to promote goodwill between them, and to train them to govern their country in common. But the party recognise that if America stands aside the country may have at least temporarily to be divided. But if a mandate for the south-western districts (Cilicia, Diarbekr, Kharput) is given to France, they demand that it shall be conferred under the strict conditions referred to above, and that at a date to be specified in the mandate the population shall be given an opportunity of deciding whether they wish to govern themselves as a separate State or to reunite with the rest of Armenia.

3. The remainder of Turkish Armenia ought to be attached at once to the independent Armenian Republic, already in being in Trans-Caucasia.

4. The party protest against any idea of subordinating the Armenian settlement to considerations of Indian policy.