TURKEY VOWS TO IGNORE ANY EU PARLIAMENT GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
Yahoo! News 7
April 15 2015
Ankara (AFP) – Turkey on Wednesday warned the European Parliament it
would ignore any resolution calling on Ankara to recognise the 1915
killings of Armenians in World War I as genocide.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said any such statement would go
“in one ear and out from the other”.
The European Parliament is due to vote later Wednesday on a “motion
for resolution on the commemoration of the centennial of the Armenian
genocide”.
The vote takes place against the backdrop of growing tensions over
the characterisation of the tragedy ahead of the 100th anniversary
of the Ottoman-era massacres this month.
“Whatever decision the European Union Parliament makes today would
go in one ear and out from the other because it is not possible for
Turkey to accept such a sin or crime,” Erdogan told reporters at an
Ankara airport before leaving for Kazakhstan.
The resolution in parliament calls on Turkey to “recognise the Armenian
Genocide and thus to pave the way for a genuine reconciliation between
the Turkish and Armenian people.”
The EU parliament had itself recognised the killings as genocide
in 1987.
Furious with Pope Francis’ use of the word “genocide” at the weekend
to describe the killings, Turkey responded by summoning the Vatican’s
ambassador in Ankara and recalling the Turkish envoy to the Holy See
in a show of protest.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose country is a NATO member
and long-time European Union hopeful, warned the pope not to use
“blackmail against Turkey”.
“We will not let our nation be insulted over history,” Davutoglu
said in an address to his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)
in Ankara.
“The pope has also joined those traps set against the AK Party and
Turkey,” he said, railing at the “unfair accusations” made ahead of
Turkey’s June 7 elections.
– ‘No stain’ –
The United States on Tuesday called for a “full, frank” acknowledgement
of the mass killings while shying away from calling the massacres a
“genocide.”
“I don’t know right now what sort of decision they will make… but I
barely understand why we, as the nation, as well as print and visual
media, stand in defence,” Erdogan said, referring to the European
parliament.
“I personally don’t bother about a defence because we don’t carry a
stain or a shadow like genocide,” he said.
Armenia and Armenians in the diaspora say 1.5 million of their
forefathers were killed by Ottoman forces in a targeted campaign to
eradicate the Armenian people from Anatolia in what is now eastern
Turkey.
Turkey takes a sharply different view, saying hundreds of thousands
of both Turks and Armenians lost their lives as Ottoman forces battled
the Russian Empire for control of eastern Anatolia during World War I.
Erdogan on Wednesday said Turkey was home to some 100,000 Armenian
citizens, who were working in the country, some illegally.
“We could have deported them but we did not. We’re still hosting
them in our country. It is not possible to understand such a stance
against a country which displays” hospitality, he said.
Turkey is also still home to a small Turkish-Armenian community,
mostly based in Istanbul, who number around 60,000.
Armenians around the world will commemorate the 100th anniversary
of the tragedy on April 24, the same day as Turkey is planning major
commemorations of the World War I battle of Gallipoli.