The German parliament resolution recognising as genocide the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire has “no value” and won’t change Turkey’s position on the matter, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.
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Thursday’s resolution also recognized that Germany, a military ally of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, “bears partial responsibility” because it did not stop the Armenian killings.
“The issue here is not the Armenians… The Armenian issue is just blackmail against Turkey around the world”, Erdogan said.
Referring to the positive role of the Churches in Germany, Catholicos Aram I added, “As Moderator of the World Council of Churches, I had the privilege of observing the strong commitment of the churches in Germany to justice and to the struggle against impunity”. You may like it, you may not. Historian Eugene Rogan tells NPR, “What happened was a small number of [Armenian] militants who did cross over to the Russian side, who did actively try and recruit Armenians to support the Russian cause, made life extremely risky for the majority of Armenian civilians who basically had no fight with anyone, did not wish to be drawn into any war and found themselves under tremendous pressure; soldiers who, suspected by their Turkish comrades, begin to get shot down”.
Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands Lodewijk Assher said that the Kingdom will not recognize the events of 1915 as the so-called “Armenian genocide”, Anadolu agency reported.
However, the Turkish President said it was “too early” to talk of economic measures against Germany.
The vote in the German parliament added yet another bone of contention to Turkey’s troubled relationship with the European Union, which it has sought to join since 1987. “Either we find solutions to our problems in a fair way”.
He clarified that Turkey did not have any enmity with Europe. “We will leave you to your own worries”. Turkey would also receive financial compensation as part of the deal. In his speech, Erdogan insisted that the genocide vote would not affect the EU-Ankara agreement, but he did warn that Germany could lose “an important friend”.
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The resolution accused the Ottoman government of 1915 of allegedly carrying out “systematic genocide” against Armenians, as well as other Christian minorities.
