“The documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the mass killings of Armenians speak for themselves and after our resolution it will be much more hard for Turkey to deny the Armenian Genocide”, said Ozdemir.
Advertisement
The German Bundestag adopted the Armenian Genocide recognition resolution, which is entitled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916”.
Merkel, who wasn’t present for the vote because of what officials said were scheduling reasons, later stressed the close and friendly relations between Germany and Turkey.
Ottoman Turks forced Armenians out of their homes in eastern Turkey amid fears they would cooperate with the enemy army of Czarist Russia around the time of World War I.
Even before Germany’s Bundestag lower house of parliament passed the symbolic resolution by an overwhelming majority, Turkey’s prime minister had condemned the motion as “irrational” and said it would test the friendship between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation partners.
Earlier on Thursday, German parliament approved a resolution recognizing the World War I-era killings of Anatolian Armenians at the hands of Ottomans as “genocide”. Ankara also insists the death toll has been inflated.
Opening Thursday’s debate, Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert acknowledged that addressing historical events can be painful.
Germany at the time was an ally of the Ottoman Empire and raised no concerns about the incidents. Turkey suppressed accounts of the killings for decades, and to this day staunchly rejects the label of genocide.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that German genocide resolution will “seriously” affect relations between the two countries. It recalled its envoy from the Vatican after Pope Francis used the term last Sunday and did the same in Austria after lawmakers spoke the word.
The leader of the Green Party Cem Özdemir, one of the MPs behind the initiative said the resolution is very likely to cause problems in relations with Turkey, ‘however, the Bundestag will not allow a despot like Erdogan to blackmail itself’. “In fact, it is a precondition for understanding, reconciliation and cooperation”.
The EU may also speed up the payment of 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) to Turkey to help it deal with the refugee crisis, with potentially billions more on the table.
He said Turkey’s current government is not responsible for what happened 100 years ago, ‘but it shares responsibility for what happens with it in the future’.
Advertisement
Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that Turkey’s predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, committed the so-called genocide against Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915.
