According to the information from German Bundestag, on February 22 the German parliamentary faction of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Socialistic Union (CSU) submitted a statement to the parliament which states that around 1.5m Armenians died as a result of premeditated mass deportation and massacre on the part of the Young Turk authorities in the course of the World War I while the ruling Turkish authorities persist in negating this fact. The document signed by 20 CDU/CSU deputies and chairs of the parliament faction Angela Merkel and Michael Glos is titled: “In memory of the 90th anniversary of deportation and massacre of Armenians on April 24, 1915: Germany should assist to the reconciliation of Armenians and Turks.”
Germany should advocate for Turkey’s considering the part it played in relation to the Armenian people without any conditions precedent both in terms of historic and contemporary aspects, promote freedom of speech in Turkey, in particular, in connection with the Armenian massacre, exert influence seeking to ensure that Turkey normalize its relations with Armenia in order to make contribution to securing stability between the Armenians and the Turks who should acknowledge their historic guilt so that research on the history of Armenians’ deportation be included among 20th century ethnic conflicts being investigated in Germany, the statement reads.
The German centrist press also brought up the issue stating that if the statement is supported by the Bundestag majority and passed this will be a turning point for the German politics. The press criticized German political analysts and diplomats who overestimated Turkish political and diplomatic circles’ ability for self-criticism as well as for the lack of active mediation over the past years, which resulted in relations between Turkey and Armenia evolving in the atmosphere of chilliness ever since Armenia gained its independence. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Regina Moench criticizes those German political analyst and diplomatic circles that blamed Armenians for tension in Armenian-Turkish relations stating that “they focus too much on their past and have lost sight of their political goals” in the daily’s February 23 issue. The journalist disapproves of those sharing the same opinion stating that such are likely to think, “reconciliation can be possible without justice. It is an adventurist position if we compare this way of thinking with human rights standards and the spirit of the tradition of memory accepted in Europe. The hope that Turkey will change something during its accession talks didn’t come true.”
A number of the representatives of the ruling German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) voiced their approval of the statement submitted by their political opponents. Markus Meckel, Deputy Spokesman of the SPD in the German Bundestag on Foreign Relations, hailed the CDU/CSU statement in Mitteldeutsche Zeitung February 26 issue, adding: “this is a very good basis for submitting a joint statement by all Bundestag factions. We should initiate discussion on the issue right away. It is important that Turkey accepts the reality. Rapprochement with Europe presupposes the presence of a certain political culture which should show critical approach to difficult parts of own history.”
