GERMAN PRESIDENT SAYS THE MASSACRE OF ARMENIANS IN 1915 WAS ‘GENOCIDE’

19:55, 23 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

German President Joachim Gauck has described the mass murder of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide and also asked the question
of German guilt.

In a speech by an ecumenical service in Berlin Cathedral Gauck went
on Thursday, according to the transcript so that a formulation of
government coalitions beyond that which will be resolved on Friday,
the Bundestag. “In this case we German must provide a total of us
still working up when it namely a shared responsibility, perhaps even
complicity in the genocide of the Armenians goes,” he said, referring
to military representatives of the German Empire, who participated
in the deportations were.

But gauck took over verbatim also a phrase that is to decide on the
request of the factions of the CDU and SPD on Friday Parliament:
“With our present knowledge and against the background of political
and humanitarian horrors of the past decades is today clearly in mind:
The fate of the Armenians exemplifies the history of mass destruction,
ethnic cleansing, the deportation, the genocide of the 20th century
is marked on the so horribly. ”

Turkey acknowledges that Ottoman troops killed 1915 and 1916 Armenian
Christians in massacres and deportations. The government denies,
however, that there were hundreds of thousands and that it should have
been a genocide. According to estimates, up to one and a half million
people were killed then possibly. In protest against the genocide
resolution of the Austrian Parliament, the Turkish government moved
Wednesday night from their ambassador from Vienna.

From: A. Papazian