Germany plans Armenian massacre resolution
International Relations & Security Network, Switzerland
April 22 2005
ISN SECURITY WATCH (22/04/05) – The German parliament has agreed to a
resolution asking Ankara to accept the Turkish role in the expulsion
and massacre of as many as 1.5 million Armenians during and after
World War I.
The resolution, which is set to win final approval by lawmakers in the
next few months, avoids the word “genocide” in its call for Turkey to
“take historic responsibility” for the massacres of Armenians by the
Ottoman Turkish government and to ask forgiveness from the victims’
descendants.
The resolution comes in the run-up to Turkey’s EU membership
negotiations, which are set to begin in October. The sensitive issue
is likely to play a key role in Ankara’s bid to join the European club.
“I have no doubt the question of genocide will be on the agenda for
the talks between the EU and Turkey,” Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan told reporters.
The German resolution is not without its critics, who have
accused Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of
instrumentalizing the Armenian issue in an attempt to block Turkey’s
EU membership bid. The conservative alliance, which has been skeptical
of Ankara’s EU aspirations in the past, denied the accusations.
The resolution comes only two days before the commemoration of the
expulsions, which began on 24 April 90 years ago in Armenia.
Turkish officials responded harshly to the German parliamentary
decision, and Turkey’s ambassador to Germany, Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik,
condemned the resolution as containing “countless factual errors”. He
accused German officials of writing it “in agreement with propaganda
efforts of fanatic Armenians”.
According to official Armenian accounts of the massacre, between
1.2 and 1.5 million Christian Armenians were killed or died from
disease and starvation as a result of the Ottoman Turkish authorities’
measures.
Ankara rejects those figures, saying that Armenia lacks concrete
evidence to back up the claim. Many Turkish historians say that
some 600’000 Armenians died in a war in which nationalist Armenians
sided with Russian troops when they invaded eastern Turkey. Turkish
historians deny that any murders were premeditated.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations, and in 1993, Turkish
closed its border with Armenia in a show of loyalty to neighboring
Azerbaijan at the height of a bloody conflict over the disputed
territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Last month, Turkey offered to conduct a joint study with Armenia on
the disputed events of World War I, but Armenian authorities rejected
the offer.
The German resolution also recognized Germany’s role in the Armenian
killings, as Germany was the Ottoman Empire’s main ally in the war.