German parliament passes the bill recognising Armenian massacre

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
June 16 2005

The Federal German Parliament on Thursday a motion declaring that the
Christian Armenian residents of the Ottoman Empire were subjected to
massacre under 90 years ago.

Güncelleme: 10:38 ET 16 Haziran 2005 PerºembeBERLIN – The draft
avoided referring to the 1915 incidents alleged by Armenians to be
a ~Sgenocide~T but described them as ~Smassacre~T.

The bill, tabled by the opposition was passed with unanimous vote
without any debate.

The parliamentary motion said that many independent historians,
parliaments and international organisations had defined the forced
migration and destruction as a massacre.

Although the bill did not directly describe the events of 1915, where
up to one million Armenians were claimed to be involved, as genocide
it did refer to same sources that do see the case as genocide.

The bill also said that Germany was saddened by the role it played
in the incidents in 1915. Imperial Germany was allied to the Ottoman
Empire during the First World War.

In the motion the federal parliament called on the German government to
contribute to efforts to have Turkey and its parliament face up to its
history promoting the setting up of a joint committee of Turkish and
Armenian historians, the opening of Turkish archives and normalising
of relations between Ankara and Yerivan.

German Chancellor Gerard Schroeder in his speech to parliament said
it would be irresponsible to make a u-turn from the decision to start
negotiation talks with Turkey on its entry to the European Union.

However, he warned that the negotiation process would be halted if
Turkey was not to meet the membership conditions.

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