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German Bundestag petitions government to recognize Armenian genocide
BERLIN -- Crises and protests, a hunger strike, diminished authority of the leadership, the problem of the Kurds, Cyprus and the dispute about European security policy when looking at Turkey's application for EU membership, German diplomacy has no lack of points that give cause for concern. It would like to avoid the difficult question of genocide against the Armenians. Precisely this theme, however, is now coming to the government from the Bundestag.
Joschka Fischer's Foreign Ministry will soon receive from parliament a petition that has the objective of condemning the deportation and extermination of Armenians during World War I as genocide. Sixteen thousand signatories are calling on the political leadership of the Federal Republic to follow the example of the French National Assembly, the European Parliament and Pope John Paul II in recognizing the action of the "young Turks" against the Armenians in the years after 1915 as genocide and to demand the same from the government in Ankara. That government, in harmony with large parts of the Turkish public, categorizes the fate of the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire as "tragic, war-caused events". At the same time, they say, by no means were 1.5 million people killed, as asserted from the Armenian side, but at most 600,000. In Turkey, the genocide resolution by Paris met with angry reactions and a boycott of French goods.
After examination by its petition committee, the Bundestag unanimously
forwarded the petition to the Foreign Ministry, expressing clear
reservations, however. The accompanying letter from parliament does not
mention genocide. Rather the Bundestag also uses the "tragic events"
formula.
Because, moreover, "old wounds must not be opened up but healed, the kind of
initiatives that the petition calls for are not advisable." It is necessary,
however, "in the framework of diplomatic relations between Turkey and
Germany to make clear at the first opportunity the point of view of a large share of
the German populace". Fischer's ministry should take a position on this
within six months.
PDS [Party of Democratic Socialism] Bundestag member Uwe Hiksch would like
to go substantially further. The draft written by him of an intergroup proposal
for a resolution includes not only the term genocide and the call to make
recognition of the genocide a "touchstone" of Turkish accession to the EU
but also the recommendation that the Bundestag officially apologize for the
"support and deliberate toleration" of the horrors by the German Empire.
Hiksch is hoping for 40 to 50 supporters from all Bundestag groups to
introduce the motion in the plenary session. The right of the victims to
recognition of their suffering must not be abused for anti-Turkish
propaganda, however. What is needed is a "cautious approach in a
parliamentary process lasting three to four years".
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives