LITHUANIAN MPS FACE ‘GENOCIDE’ DISPLEASURE
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 6 2007
A parliamentary delegation’s visit from European Union member
Lithuania to the Turkish Parliament offered an opportunity yesterday
to the Turkish side to express their uneasiness over the Lithuanian
Parliament’s approval of a resolution supporting Armenian genocide
allegations at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire in the last
century.
Although the Lithuanian Parliament’s resolution dates back to December
2005, the issue has never dropped from Turkey’s agenda, particularly
taking into consideration the fact that another resolution for official
recognition of Armenian allegations was introduced at the US House
of Representatives just in January.
The Lithuanian delegation — consisting of members of EU and foreign
affairs commissions at the Lithuanian Parliament — held talks with
Mehmet Dulger, head of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission.
During the meeting Dulger referred to a recent decision by the
International Court of Justice in The Hague which ruled that the
killings of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 was genocide but
determined that Serbia itself was not guilty of the enormous crime
and said that what European institutions were doing concerning the
labeling of genocide reflected "a double-standard."
"This ruling narrowed the definition of genocide, while declaring a
genocide without a perpetrator," Dulger said.
Ankara vehemently denies Armenian allegations that some 1.5 million
Anatolian Armenians were killed as part of a genocide at hands of
the Ottoman Empire during World War I and calls for an objective
scientific study of the issue.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
