The European Parliament is set to discuss and vote on am Armenian Genocide resolution on April 15.
The European Parliament will decide whether to name the year 2015 as the centennial of the “Armenian genocide perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire.”
In a draft joint motion it is mentioned that “an increasing number of Member States and national parliaments recognize the Armenian Genocide.”
“One of the main motivations of the European unification movement is the will to prevent the recurrence of wars and crimes against humanity in Europe,” it read.
The Parliament “pays tribute, on the eve of the Centenary, to the memory of the one-and-a-half million innocent Armenian victims who perished in the Ottoman Empire; joins the commemoration of the centenary of the Armenian genocide in a spirit of European brotherhood, solidarity and justice; calls on the European Commission and European Council to join the commemoration,” it said.
The parliamentarians will also decide whether to pay tribute to “the memory of innocent victims of all genocides and crimes, committed against humanity; proposes the establishment of an European International Remembrance Day for Genocides in order to recall again the right of all peoples and all nations throughout the world to peace and dignity.”
The Parliament is likely to invite Turkey to “respect and realize fully the legal obligations which it has undertaken to the protection of cultural heritage and, in particular, to conduct in good faith an integrated inventory of Armenian and other cultural heritage destroyed or ruined during the past century within its jurisdiction.”
Turkey hopes that the European Parliament will not accept a resolution on the so-called Armenian genocide, Minister for EU Affairs of Turkey Volkan Bozkir said, Turkish TV channel TRT Haber reported April 14.
He said that the bilateral relations between Turkey and the EU are developing dynamically, and the adoption of such a resolution could seriously damage this relationship.
Turkey will make necessary attempts to prevent the adoption of teh Resolution, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tanju Bilgic said earlier.
