Term "genocide" used several times in Bundestag's text new Armenian Genocide Resolution draft

YEREVAN, 21 APRIL, ARMENPRESS. The term “genocide” is mentioned several times in the text of the new Armenian Genocide Centennial Resolution posted on the official website of the German Bundestag. As “Armenpress” reports, the preliminary agenda and schedule for the April 24thsession has also been posted.

The plenary session devoted to the discussion on the Armenian Genocide will start on April 24 at exactly 9:00 in Germany. The session will last an hour, during which members of the German Bundestag’s largest political parties (Christian-Democratic Union/Christian-Socialist Union, Social-Democratic Party of Germany and the Left-Wings Party). The speeches will be followed by a voting for the draft of the Armenian Genocide Resolution with the term “genocide” and with a justification stating the point of the Convention by which the massacres perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire will be referred to as “genocide”.

Unlike France and other countries having recognized the Armenian Genocide, Germany had been opposing usage of the term “genocide” for a long time. The change of Germany’s position comes after the statements that Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s speaker Steffen Seibert made on April 20. On April 20, the Chancellor’s speaker announced that the government would support the resolution to be submitted to the Bundestag on April 24, declaring the events of 1915 as an example of genocide.