BUNDESTAG PARTY GROUPS UNANIMOUS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL, ITS SPONSOR CONSIDERS

PanArmenian News
March 22 2005

22.03.2005 04:49

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Party groups of the German Federal Parliament
have shown unusual unanimity and solidarity regarding a bill titled
Commemoration Day of Armenians on the 90th anniversary of the
slaughter April 24, 1915 – Germany should promote rapprochement of
Turks and Armenians. It was stated by German MP, President of the
German-Caucasian parliamentary group in Bundestag Christoph Bergner,
who had sponsored the bill, Arminfo news agency reported. In his words,
thus the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union intend
to enlist the support of representatives of Bundestag other political
factions in the course of the debate over the bill in April. “We
are convinced that we will have common initiatives with one or even
several political parties,” Bergner noted, adding that, as exceeding
the initially marked progress was not planned, the issue of further
lobbying of the initiative was not discussed. The respective resolution
can be adopted before the Parliament recess in June. Speaking of the
possible interrelation between the CDU/CSU attitude to the prospects
of Turkish full membership in the European Union and the Armenian
Genocide issue being urgent in Germany, the bill sponsor noted that
the faction has come against Turkey’s accession to the EU and for
granting Privileged Partnership status to it, which is a bit less than
EU membership. “We suppose that the problem raised on our initiative
does not refer to the issue whether Turkey will become an EU member
or it will get a privileged partner status,” Bergner stated.