TERM “GENOCIDE” USED SEVERAL TIMES IN BUNDESTAG’S TEXT NEW ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION DRAFT

19:27, 21 April, 2015

YEREVAN, 21 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. The term “genocide” is mentioned
several times in the text of the new Armenian Genocide Centennial
Resolution posted on the official website of the German Bundestag. As
“Armenpress” reports, the preliminary agenda and schedule for the
April 24th session has also been posted.

The plenary session devoted to the discussion on the Armenian Genocide
will start on April 24 at exactly 9:00 in Germany. The session will
last an hour, during which members of the German Bundestag’s largest
political parties (Christian-Democratic Union/Christian-Socialist
Union, Social-Democratic Party of Germany and the Left-Wings Party).

The speeches will be followed by a voting for the draft of the Armenian
Genocide Resolution with the term “genocide” and with a justification
stating the point of the Convention by which the massacres perpetrated
in the Ottoman Empire will be referred to as “genocide”.

Unlike France and other countries having recognized the Armenian
Genocide, Germany had been opposing usage of the term “genocide”
for a long time. The change of Germany’s position comes after the
statements that Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic
of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
speaker Steffen Seibert made on April 20. On April 20, the Chancellor’s
speaker announced that the government would support the resolution
to be submitted to the Bundestag on April 24, declaring the events
of 1915 as an example of genocide.