Turkey condemns Polish parliament decision to recognize Armenian “genocide”

Anatolia news agency
20 Apr 05

Ankara, 20 April: Turkey condemned a decision of the Polish parliament
describing events in 1915 as genocide.

Releasing a statement on Wednesday [20 April], the Turkish Ministry
of Foreign Affairs (MFA) recalled that the Polish parliament approved
a decision recognizing the events on 19 April 1915 as genocide.

MFA condemned the decision of the Polish parliament, and rejected it.
“Distortion of the events during the World War I which caused
both Turkish and Armenian peoples to endure grave sufferings,
and unilateral definement of them as genocide are nothing, but
irresponsibility. Turkey has been advocating that national parliaments
could not rule about the controversial periods of the history, and
that parliaments should avoid initiatives that could provoke vengeance
and hatred between people,” it said.

The MFA noted: “Only historians can made the healthiest decisions
about historical events. Therefore, Turkey proposed Armenia to set
up group of Turkish and Armenian historians to examine the events in
1915 by utilizing archives of all relevant countries.”

“We profoundly regretted that the Polish parliament made such a
decision based on distorted information, instead of recommending
the Armenian government to accept our proposal. This attitude of
the Polish parliament contradicts with the friendly relations of 8
centuries between Turkish and Polish nations,” the MFA added.