BULGARIAN PARLIAMENT REJECTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MOTION NOT TO SPOIL RELATIONS WITH TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net
07.02.2010 16:21 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Bulgarian parliament voted down ATAKA party’s motion
recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Zaman reported.

The party called on the parliament to demand compensation from Turkey
for the Bulgarians deported from Thrakia, describe the events taking
place in the Ottoman Empire in 1396-1913 as the Bulgarian Genocide
and recognize the fact of the Armenian Genocide.

The parliament rejected the motion, which "could have negative impact
on the Bulgarian-Turkish relations."

ATAKA party was formed in 2005 in Sofia. The party has 20 principles,
including secession from NATO and abstention from taking part
in military unions. It also opposes Bulragia’s membership in the
European Union.

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.

Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of
food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially recognized
the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars
and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also
recognized by influential media including The New York Times, BBC,
The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.