A parliamentary body representing the European Union’s member and partner states on Tuesday called for greater international recognition of the 1915 Armenian genocide and urged Turkey to “come to terms with its past.”
In a resolution adopted during a session in Yerevan, the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly said “the absence of unequivocal and timely condemnation of the Armenian Genocide largely contributed to the failure to prevent future crimes against humanity.”
Therefore, it said, “prevention of genocides and crimes against humanity should be amongst the priorities of the international community.”The world should also strive for “the restoration of the rights of people subjected to genocide,” added the assembly bringing together members of the European Parliament and legislatures of ex-Soviet states involved in the EU’s Eastern Partnership program.
The resolution further “deeply deplores” attempts to deny the World War One-era slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey and other genocides. In that regard, it “invites Turkey to come to term with its past.”
The Euronest text was adopted less than a week after the European Parliament reaffirmed its recognition of the Armenian genocide in an annual report on human rights practices around the world. It urged all EU member states to do the same.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected the EU legislature’s appeal, saying that it is “utterly devoid of historical reality and legal basis.”
“We find these assertions in all respects extremely problematic and regret them deeply,” the ministry spokesman, Tanju Bilgic, said in a weekend statement. “The report interprets a certain period of the Ottoman Empire, which was tragic for all the people of the Empire, one-sidedly and with a sense of selective justice.”