PanARMENIAN.Net

The Netherlands: Genocide recognition should be precondition for
Turkey’s accession to EU
26.04.2008 16:13 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Netherlands should give more
support to those who want an open discussion on the
Armenian Genocide in and outside of Turkey.

The Netherlands should also more strongly emphasize
the necessity of Genocide recognition in the process
of the negotiations for accession of Turkey to the
European Union, Reformatorisch Dagblad Dutch newspaper
reports.

This is written in a petition that the Federation of
Armenian Organizations in the Netherlands (FAON)
offered Tuesday to the Dutch parliament. Tomorrow it
will be the 93rd anniversary of the deportation and
annihilation of about 1.5 million Armenians by the
Ottoman Empire. Turkey still refuses to recognize the
massacres as Genocide.

The Dutch parliament indeed recognized the Genocide by
adopting the motion submitted by Mr. A. Rouvoet in
2004. The government however should work out more
seriously the conditions drawn up in the motion,
according to the Armenians. For example the government
should keep harking on the issue of human rights
within the framework of the accession negotiations to
European Union.

In addition to the petition the FAON also handed over
to the Parliament the Dutch translation of the book
`The First Holocaust’ by the journalist Robert Fisk,
in which the correspondent of the British newspaper
The Independent draws attention to the Genocide of the
Armenians.