Finally! German MPs recognize Armenian genocide amid Turkish fury

for truth

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The German parliament has approved a resolution declaring that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One was a "genocide".

Turkey is bitterly opposed to the Bundestag (lower house) resolution, and has warned that it could hurt ties.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their people died in the atrocities of 1915. Turkey says the toll was much lower and rejects the term "genocide".

The timing is awkward, as the EU needs Turkey to help stem the migrant influx.

A spokesman for Turkey's ruling AK party said the move would damage ties with Germany; Armenia's foreign minister said it was a "valuable contribution" to the "international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian genocide".

More than 20 nations, including France and Russia, as well as Pope Francis, have recognised the 1915 killings as genocide.

Turkey denies that there was a systematic campaign to slaughter Christian Armenians as an ethnic group during WWI. It also points out that many Turkish civilians died in the turmoil during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was not in the Bundestag for the vote. Her Christian Democrats (CDU), their coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens all supported the resolution, and the vote in favour was overwhelming.

Turkish opposition
German MPs came under pressure from Turks in the run-up to the vote, including threatening and abusive e-mails, German ARD news reports.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said approval of the resolution would be "irrational". And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned Mrs Merkel, warning her that ties would suffer "if (Germany) falls into such a game".

The resolution uses the word "genocide" in the headline and text. It also says Germany - at the time an ally of the Ottomans - bears some guilt for doing nothing to stop the killings.

Under a deal struck in March, Turkey agreed to take back migrants - including Syrians - arriving on the Greek islands, in return for EU aid and a pledge to give Turks visa-free travel to most of Europe.

Germany accepted 1.1 million migrants last year - by far the highest influx in the EU.

German-Turkish relations were also strained this year by the case of comedian Jan Boehmermann, whose obscene poem about Mr Erdogan prompted a criminal complaint from the Turkish leader.

Last month a court in Hamburg ruled that Boehmermann's poem was satire, but banned him from repeating the sexual references in it, deeming them unacceptable.

Germany plans to repeal a clause in the constitution prohibiting insults that target foreign leaders - the clause invoked by Turkey in the complaint.

  • Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, whose empire was disintegrating
  • Many of the victims were civilians deported to barren desert regions where they died of starvation and thirst. Thousands also died in massacres
  • Armenia says up to 1.5 million people were killed. Turkey says the number of deaths was much smaller
  • Most non-Turkish scholars of the events regard them as genocide - as do more than 20 states including France, Germany and Russia, and some international bodies such as the European Parliament
  • Turkey rejects the term "genocide", maintaining that many of the dead were killed in clashes during World War One, and that many ethnic Turks also suffered in the conflict
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36433114
 

pmaitra

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Should have been done long time ago. This is all political posturing. Turkey was useful when it offered NATO geopolitical advantage. Now, that Erdogan wants to push hordes into Europe, perhaps Islamist radicals, such as, but not limited to ISIS, along with refugees into Europe, they are using this as a pressure tactic. Erdogan is a megalomaniac, a member of the Islamic Brotherhood, and an active supporter of ISIS.

I wish Europe would tighten the screws a little further, and with any luck, and Russian help, Greece shall be able to claim Constantinople back, the Armenians their ancestral lands back, Syria Alexandretta back, and the Kurds, their own homeland.
 

for truth

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Should have been done long time ago. This is all political posturing. Turkey was useful when it offered NATO geopolitical advantage. Now, that Erdogan wants to push hordes into Europe, perhaps Islamist radicals, such as, but not limited to ISIS, along with refugees into Europe, they are using this as a pressure tactic. Erdogan is a megalomaniac, a member of the Islamic Brotherhood, and an active supporter of ISIS.

I wish Europe would tighten the screws a little further, and with any luck, and Russian help, Greece shall be able to claim Constantinople back, the Armenians their ancestral lands back, Syria Alexandretta back, and the Kurds, their own homeland.
remember the time when the famous 'TIME' magazine carried the photo of Erdogan and hailed him?

The west thought of him as a progressive,secular and democratic....but now, it is totally opposite.

How fast the times change...now, pretty much everyone in west is skeptical or outright hateful of erdogan.

but when was Turkey a model democracy? They had some sort of shaky elections in the post-military era--that's all.
 

pmaitra

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remember the time when the famous 'TIME' magazine carried the photo of Erdogan and hailed him?

The west thought of him as a progressive,secular and democratic....but now, it is totally opposite.

How fast the times change...now, pretty much everyone in west is skeptical or outright hateful of erdogan.

but when was Turkey a model democracy? They had some sort of shaky elections in the post-military era--that's all.
That was when Erdogan was a powerless president and his party did not control the parliament. He was acting all goody goody so that Turkey could accede to the EU. EU, however, knew the dangers of allowing Turkey into EU, and dragged their feet. Then, Erdogan, frustrated, turned his sights towards the Middle East, and surrounded himself with people with ambitions to re-create the Ottoman Empire. His party soon won the parliament, and then he, and his henchmen, started brainwashing their folks, and even heavily modified their school curriculum teaching them myths about how Muslims discovered America and Muslims sent rockets, and a lot of other nonsense. Had it not been for ISIS, the Germans would not have woken up from slumber.
 

pmaitra

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@for truth, I forgot to add that in the context of Turkey, it is necessary to mention Bangladesh and Egypt.

There have been some recent attacks on minorities and free speech. Hindus and at least one Buddhist monk have been killed, either by ISIS, or Islamists claiming to be ISIS. The good news is that most people are secular, and so is the ruling party. Turkey was upset with the hanging of a 1971/72 Islamist war criminal, and withdrew their Ambassador. India needs to watch Turkey very carefully, and cultivate strong relations with all the secular minded countries, such as Bangladesh, and Egypt, that refused to become a lackey of Erdogan and clamped down on the Islamic Brotherhood.
 

pmaitra

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Denial of one genocide on one hand:

While another is in progress:
 

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