Germany set to recognize 1915 Armenian genocide
Germany joins other nations and institutions including France, the European parliament and Pope Francis in using the term “genocide" to describe the massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces 100 years ago. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier today said acknowledgement of the 1915 mass killings of Armenians during the last years of the Ottoman Empire s genocide is understandable. "One could want to summarize what happened then with the term 'genocide,' and I can well understand the reasons and certainly the feelings for that," Steinmeier said in his interview with Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. At the same time the German FM stressed that ‘the growing political debate over the issue could complicate or even make it impossible to start a serious and direct dialogue between Turkey and Armenia.’ In his turn, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) foreign affairs chief Franz Josef Jung said his party was going to call the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey ‘gencoide,’ despite protests in Ankara. “We will find an expression so that the genocide that was committed 100 years ago in Turkey will be referred to by its own name,” he told Saarbrücker Zeitung. Jung also said he believes German President Joachim Gauck will use the term genocide in his speech to be delivered at Berlin Cathedral on Thursday night. Gauck will be the first-ever German president to attend any event in Berlin commemorating what the Armenians call genocide. Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said the government would support a resolution in parliament on Friday declaring it an example of genocide. Germany had long resisted using the term "genocide" even though France and other nations have. But the coalition government came under pressure from parliamentary deputies in their own ranks planning to use the word in a resolution. "The government backs the draft resolution...in which the fate of the Armenians during World War One serves as an example of the history of mass murders, ethnic cleansings, expulsions and, yes, the genocides during the 20th century," Seibert said.
