Proposed vote on Armenian Genocide Declaration ends in scandal in Sofia City Council

PanARMENIAN.Net - The proposed voting of the Declaration expressing sympathy with the tragedy of the Armenian people in the Ottoman Empire ended in a scandal on the international Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, April 24.



The members of the Sofia City Council from the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party left in protest as the majority voted to remove the voting of the proposed Declaration from the agenda of Thursday's meeting.



The text of the proposed Declaration was read at the beginning of the meeting. It states that the murder of 1,5 million Armenians and the mass expulsion of millions of others from their homes by the Ottomans was a proven historical fact.



"With this failure to denounce the Armenian Genocide, Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov bowed his head before Turkey", said Vili Lilkov, a city counselor from the rightist Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) party of former PM Ivan Kostov as he was leaving the meeting.



He added that in this way Borisov had also defied the demands of the Armenians living in Sofia.



"I don't want to confront Turkey. We have done everything necessary to recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1922 but the DSB wants to cause confrontation with Turkey", the Sofia Mayor and GERB party leader Boyko Borisov retorted.



He added that he had met with representatives of the Armenian community in Sofia and had expressed his sympathies to them regarding the remembrance of the Genocide.



The GERB City Counselor Angel Dzhambazki declared that the Sofia City Council had in fact no authority to denounce the Armenian Genocide, and that this could be done only by the national Parliament. In his words, the DSB representatives were either mistaken, or had not read the statutes of the City Council, novinite.com reports.