CATALAN DEPUTIES CALL FOR RECOGNITION OF ALLEGED GENOCIDE
Turkish Daily News
Sep 06, 2006
Having received a letter from an Armenian group, two Catalan deputies
have come up with a proposal calling for debates in the Spanish
Parliament on the so-called Armenian genocide at the hands of the
Ottoman Empire in the last century.
Rosa M. Bonas and Joan Puigcercos submitted the proposal in June to
the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Spanish Parliament, urging the
recognition of the so-called genocide on the grounds that it was a
crime against humanity.
"We’ll make changes in the proposal by taking out an article pressing
Ankara to recognize the [alleged] Armenian genocide," Bonas told the
Anatolia news agency.
She stressed that they do not want to oppose Turkey.
Bonas said she has always been sympathetic to tiny and victimized
communities — she herself is Catalan — but noted she learned about
the so-called genocide only after the Armenian committee’s letter.
The Catalan deputy also expressed hope that she would not be
misunderstood by the Turkish public and said, "I’ve always defended
Turkey’s European Union membership in the European Parliament and
I’ll continue to do so."
The Turkish ambassador in Madrid, Volkan Vural, said Turkey has taken
action at the level of the Spanish Foreign Ministry and the Spanish
Parliament as soon as they heard about the proposal and sent letters
to the two deputies and the head of the Spanish Parliament’s Foreign
Affairs Commission, saying that the proposal would harm Turkish-Spanish
relations.
"In Ankara, the Foreign Minister reacted [to the proposal]," Vural
told Anatolia.
He said the possibility of the proposal’s approval was very weak and
added: "It is clear that it will have no legal meaning even if it is
adopted. It will become clear how wrong and unfortunate an approach
it is to intermingle past events with politics."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
