Turkey returns copy of European Parliament’s motion on Genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey has discarded a European Parliament motion recognizing the mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War I as Genocide, Asbarez reports.

The European Parliament sent its motion to the office of the Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the EU on April 29. The office sent it back on April 30, with a delegation’s statement expressing Turkey’s anger.

In a response, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said, “The European Parliament repeated the same exact mistake it made in the past, by being incompatible with international law and exceeding its competence.”

“We return this text, which is an unprecedented example of incoherence in all aspects, verbatim to the abovementioned institution so that the text finds its place among the documents that the European Parliament will shy away from remembering in the future,” the Foreign Ministry said in a written statement.

Almost simultaneously with Ankara’s move of returning the motion, the commissioner in charge of EU enlargement argued that Turkey’s backlash against European countries calling the 1915 killings Genocide will complicate Ankara’s ambitions to join the EU.

Commissioner Johannes Hahn told Austrian newspaper Der Standard this week that Ankara’s “very harsh” reaction should be seen in the context of the upcoming June elections.

“This [response] may be quite popular in parts of the country and among certain parts of the population. But what worries me are the long-term consequences,” Hahn said. “The seeds of an anti-European and anti-Western stance are thus sown, which, from today’s perspective, make a future [EU] entry very difficult.”

Turkey has rebuked several EU members including Germany and Austria whose parliaments recognized the Armenian Genocide in resolutions marking the 100th anniversary of this crime against himanity.