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Germany warns 11 MPs to keep out of Turkey after Armenian genocide vote – report

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Turkish-german MPEleven German MPs of Turkish descent, who voted for recognition of the Armenian genocide, have reportedly received a travel warning from the German Foreign Ministry. They were told not to visit Turkey – or face safety risks there.

German MPs of Turkish origin have been recommended not travel to Turkey in the nearest future as “their security could not be guaranteed,”Der Spiegel reported on Saturday, citing an internal communication from the Foreign Ministry.

“It is unspeakable to know for the first time that it’s no longer possible to fly there,” Aydan Ozoguz, a Socialist Democratic Party MP told Der Spiegel. “Erdogan needs to realize that we are not an extension of Turkey,” she said.

Other German-Turkish MPs have already canceled business trips to Ankara and summer holidays on the Bosporus, according to the magazine. One lawmaker reportedly made sure that his parents leave their family house in Turkey, seeking shelter at a hotel in another city.

Cem Ozdemir, Green Party leader and one of the advocates of the resolution to recognize the genocide, has said: “Of course, I think of what happens if someone goes nuts and does street justice.”

Last week, 11 MPs of Turkish descent voted for a landmark resolution, sparking a barrage of accusations and threats from Turkey. Almost immediately after the vote, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the lawmakers’ blood must be tested in a lab for “Turkishness,” labeling them “the long arm of the separatist terrorists placed in Germany.”

The resolution, titled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in the years 1915 and 1916,” received overwhelming support from the CDU and Social Democrats, as well as the opposition Greens.

It includes the word “genocide” in its headline and text that reads “the fate of the Armenians is exemplary in the history of mass exterminations, ethnic cleansing, deportations and yes, genocide, which marked the 20th century in such a terrible way.”

The mass killings in the Ottoman Empire began on April 24, 1915, leaving between 800,000 and 1.5 million ethnic Armenians dead. Most of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians were then displaced, deported or thrown into concentration camps, ostensibly for rebelling against the Ottomans and siding with the Russians during World War I.

In Germany, some viewed the recognition of the Armenian genocide as a moral duty, given that both the German and Ottoman empires were in a military alliance. The Germans provided weaponry, ammunition and military advisers to the Ottomans in the hope that it would give them a safe passage to neighboring British colonies in the Middle East.

Modern Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, admits that many ethnic Armenians were either mistreated or oppressed at the time, but insists the scale of the tragedy has been exaggerated, and there are no grounds to call it “genocide.”

Source: RT

The Coward Istanbul Patriarch slams Germany’s ‘Armenian genocide’ bill as ‘unacceptable’

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CawordThe head of the Armenian church in Turkey has condemned the Bundestag’s approval of a resolution recognizing the World War I-era killings of Anatolian Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as “genocide,” claiming the vote politicized a sensitive issue.

“As we have expressed on a number of occasions, the use of this pain, which traumatized the Armenian nation, in the international political arena is a real source of sorrow and pain,” acting Patriarch Aram Ateşyan said in a letter addressed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Ateşyan added that the painful history of the Armenian people was being utilized as a tool to “blame and punish the Turkish nation and Turkey in the international political arena,” calling all to understand the “use of the Armenian nation by imperialist powers.”

The  acting Patriarch also said it was “unacceptable” for Germany to express its opinion and pass laws on the killings – an issue on which it has no right to comment on, according to Ateşyan.

https://www.facebook.com/gagrulepage/videos/vb.437104506487526/522122667985709/?type=2&theater

 

Of course Germany refused to deny the Armenian genocide

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Genocide commemorations in Yerevan, Armenia in 2012 Getty

Genocide commemorations in Yerevan, Armenia in 2012 Getty

Notably Angela Merkel – who still prays that Erdogan will keep back the refugees from the EU – chose to stay absent from the vote,

By Robert Fisk @indyvoices,

The Turks always shout and threaten when someone wants to acknowledge the facts of history: that one and a half million Armenian Christians were the victims of Turkish Ottoman genocide in 1915. But did Sultan Erdogan really think that Germany – of all nations – would choose to be a Holocaust denier? 

Well, the German parliament has voted by a quite extraordinary majority to declare the Armenian genocide a genocide – which the whole world (except, of course, for the Turks) knows it to be. There were the usual menaces to Germany – a danger to cultural/trade/military “ties” – from the government in Ankara and flocks of vicious e-mails to German MPs, but the parliamentary resolution rubbed in the fact that Ottoman Turkey was an ally of Germany when it perpetrated the atrocities and that Germany itself did not do enough to stop the genocide.

Poor Angela Merkel – who still prays that Sultan Erdogan will stand by her Operation Bribery campaign and keep back the refugees from the EU for a whopping €3bn and an offer of visa free travel in the eurozone – chose to stay absent from the vote. So did her vice-chancellor and her sad foreign minister, who would not have voted for the motion anyway. The greatest irony – utterly ignored by all politicians and journalists – is that the refugees and migrants whom Europe is now so frightened of come, in many cases, from the very towns and deserts in which the Turks committed their acts of horror against the Armenians 101 years ago.

The skulls and bones of Armenians still lie in the sands south of the Turkish border which Isis now controls; and when al-Nusrah captured parts of Deir ez-Zor, they blew up the Armenian cathedral of the Syrian city, took the bones of genocide victims from the vaults and scattered them in the streets.  Several German officials who witnessed the original genocide went on to use their ‘expertise’ during the Jewish Holocaust in the Nazi occupied Soviet Union. And Hitler, preparing to invade Poland in 1939, asked his generals: “Who…is today speaking of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

Needless to say, we saw the usual weedy fence-sitting by the news agencies (especially by those with offices in Ankara and Istanbul) who emphasised the Turkish denial of the genocide and the “hotly disputed” nature of an international crime against humanity which – were those same agencies writing of the Jewish genocide – they would rightly never dare to ‘balance’ by quotations from deniers.

France and Russia and at least 18 other nations now accept the Armenian genocide as a fact of history, along with good old Pope Francis – the only major exception being the one whose name we would all guess: the US. An almost annual visit to Washington by a coterie of Turkish generals is usually enough to bring the White House to heel. Doesn’t America need those important air bases in south-eastern Turkey from which the US wages war against Isis (and from which, speak it not, Turkey now wages war against Kurds)?

But thank God, once more, for Germany. Here was one vote for which the country would be certain to snap obediently to attention.

Armenian Genocide: Turkey is preparing an action plan against Germany

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Genocide turkey actionTurkey-Armenia-Germany-genocide-diplomacy-history

Istanbul, June 8, 2016 (AFP) – Ankara is preparing a “plan of action” against Germany after the vote by the Bundestag of a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, said Wednesday the spokesman Turkish presidency, without further detail.

“Work on the measures to be taken (…) are underway with stakeholders, starting with our Foreign Ministry. They prepare an action plan, “said Ibrahim Kalin at an Ankara press conference broadcast live by the NTV news channel.

“When completed, it will be submitted to our Prime Minister, our President,” said Mr. Kalin, without further detail.

Turkey reacted angrily Thursday after the vote by the lower house of the German Parliament resolution which qualifies as genocide the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

Ankara recalled its ambassador from Berlin for “consultations” and Turkish officials had multiplied the indignant declarations, reinforcing concerns about the application of the controversial agreement between the EU and Turkey, supported by Berlin, which has significantly reduced the influx of migrants in Europe.

Traveling in East Africa during the vote of the German Parliament, the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised that “measures” would be taken on his return to Turkey, without going into details.

Saturday, the head of the Turkish state has rejected charges of genocide, denouncing “blackmail” his country does “never accept”.

Many historians and more than twenty countries, including France, Italy and Russia, have recognized that there was a genocide. But Turkey says that it was a civil war, coupled with famine in which 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died.

Thursday, June 9, 2016,
Stéphane © armenews.com

German Turkish minister: We expressed our view as MPs #ArmenianGenocide

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Turkish-German MP defaultWe realized that the resolution in connection with 1915 is a sensitive issue for Turks, but we should not expect everyone to have the same opinion, said German Turk Aydan Özoğuz, who is a Minister of State at the Federal Chancellery of Germany.

Speaking to German Deutsche Welle (DW) TV and radio company, the German Turkish minister stressed that they, as MPs, have expressed their view during the Bundestag voting of the aforesaid resolution.

“This resolution was adopted after long debates,” added Özoğuz. “You may disagree with the resolution, but it’s not right to threaten and insult those who voted for [this resolution]. Those in Turkey think that we, being Turks, represent Turkey in the German parliament; this is a wrong approach. We are the MPs of Germany, and, of course, we defend the local Turks, too. I want to stress again: I am not an MP of Turkey; I am an MP of Germany and of Turks living in Germany.”

On June 2, the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, formally recognized the Armenian Genocide, with the aforesaid resolution and with only one vote against and one abstention. The resolution also notes that the Bundestag regrets that the German government at the time did nothing to stop this crime against humanity, and therefore the Bundestag also acknowledges the respective historical accountability of Germany.

Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats

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Berlin hit backAmid the ongoing row over Germany’s decision to refer to the Armenian massacre as “genocide,” Berlin has hit back at Ankara. German MPs with Turkish roots have called for action from Merkel after receiving death threats.

Steffen Seibert, spokesman to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said on Monday that the Bundestag – Germany’s lower house of parliament – “had reached a sovereign decision.”

“That must be respected,” he added.

The comments from Berlin on Monday came in light of Turkey’s reaction last week to Germany’s decision to pass a resolution which refers to the mass deaths of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as “genocide.”

As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey officially denies that the events that started in 1915 amounted to genocide. Ankara’s official line is that ethnic Armenians represented a fifth column backed by Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional – a key requirement in the legal definition of genocide.

Following the Bundestag’s “overwhelming” vote in favor of the “genocide” resolution, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Berlin, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing to “never accept the accusations of genocide.”

“First you need to answer for the Holocaust, then for the murder of 100,000 people in Namibia,” Erdogan said.

The Turkish president also accused 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed the resolution of supporting “terrorism” by the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), and demanded “blood tests” to see “what kind of Turks they are.”

Ankara’s mayor, Ibrahim Melih Gökcek, later tweeted a collage of the 11 politicians, with the hastag #TheTraitorsMustLoseTheirCitizenship, claiming that they had “stabbed us [Turkey] in the back.”

n response to the allegations, Seibert said on Monday that while Berlin also considers the PKK a terrorist group, “to associate individual members of parliament with terrorism is utterly incomprehensible to us.”

Death threats

Among the 11 MPs was Green party co-leader, Cem Özedemir, who also instigated the vote on the resolution. The politician has since been placed under police protection after receiving anonymous death threats. The 50-year-old from Bad Urach in western Germany is the son of Turkish immigrants.

Speaking on Monday, Özdemir said that he wouldn’t let himself be intimidated by Erdogan’s verbal attacks.

“The votes in the German Bundestag aren’t made depending on which authoritarian leaders are happy and which ones aren’t,” he said.

‘This has gone too far’

During an interview with German news program “Tagesschau” on Monday, fellow Green politicians Özcan Mutlu said he had received “hundreds if not thousands of emails with messages of hate or death threats.”

“As an MP, insults and threats have started to become normal,” he said. “But this takes things to a new level.”

human rights record and worsening press freedom in order to win Ankara’s cooperation in the implementation of the EU refugee deal.

Social Democrat (SPD) and Integration Minister Aydan Özoguz also condemned the threats on Monday.

“The death threats against us MPs are absolutely unacceptable and shock me deeply,” he said.

“I expect parliament to clearly show its solidarity with us and to not leave us here alone,” Özoguz added.

Solidarity from Bundestag and Turkish community

Seemingly in response to the calls for support, Christian Democrat (CDU) and Bundestag President Norbert Lammert said on Monday that he wanted to “reitterate the lower house of parliament’s solidarity with the threatened colleagues.”

Despite broadly opposing the “genocide” vote, Germany’s Turkish community has also criticized Ankara and Erdogan’s supporters for the pressure which has been placed on German lawmakers of Turkish origin.

“We find death threats and demands for blood tests abhorrent,” said chairman of Germany’s Association for the Turkish Community, Gokay Sofuoglu.

“I think the era when people were defined by their blood ended in 1945. This is absolutely out of place,” he added.

How Armenian Genocide discussion failed in German Reichstag in 1916

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213922The first-ever attempt to address the mass killings of Armenians in Germany was made back in 1916 during the Genocide.

Reichstag member, the founder-to-be of the Communist Party of Germany Karl Liebknecht sent a written appeal to Bethmann Hollweg, the Reich Chancellor on December 20, 1915, to learn whether the German government was aware of the massacres of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. The response of the 26th session of the 13th convocation of Reichstag and the fierce reaction of the Reich’s members prove that humanist Liebknecht had risen an question, uncomfortable for the German government.

Armeniangenocide100.org presents Liebknecht’s written appeal and the transcript of the short discussion on the issue:

An excerpt from the transcript of 26th session of the 13th convocation of Reichstag:

President: We are passing to the agenda. The written appeals form the first part of the agenda. N 12 is the first of them. Reichstag member Dr. Liebknecht is invited to present the appeal.

Dr. Liebknecht: Is the Imperial Chancellor aware of the fact that during the ongoing war hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the allied Turkish Empire have been exiled and massacred? What measures has the Reich Chancellor taken for the need for repentance to awaken in allied Turkey, for the conditions of the Armenians left in Turkey to become worthy of human dignity, to prevent the recurrence of such disasters.

President: The Imperial Envoy, Director of the Political Department of the German Foreign Office, Dr. von Stumm is invited to answer the inquiry.

Dr. von Strumm: The Imperial Chancellor is aware that some time ago the Sublime Porte, compelled by the rebellious machinations of our enemies, evacuated the Armenian population in certain parts of the Turkish Empire and allocated new residential areas to them. Due to certain repercussions of these measures, an exchange of ideas is taking place between the German and the Turkish governments. Further details cannot be disclosed.

Dr. Liebknecht: I am asking you to give me the right to make a supplement in the request. (Excitement is observed in the courtroom)

Persident: Dr. Liebknecht is invited to make a supplement in the request.

Dr. Liebknecht: Is the Imperial Chancellor aware that professor Lepsius virtually spoke of an extermination of the Turkish Armenians…?

(The president’s ring. The speaker tries to continue talking. Call – Silence! Silence!)

President: Mr. deputy, this is a new appeal, which I cannot accept.

Dr. Liebknecht: Mr. President, please, keep to the rules of procedure.

If Mr. President listened to the appeal up to the end (excitement is observed in the courtroom), he would be able to decide whether it is a new request or not. By the way, it is noteworthy that the president was not self-willed in concluding a new appeal was being submitted, but was influenced by the audience’s reaction.

President: Dr. Liebknecht, I forbid such criticism against my regulations. (Stormy applause). We pass on to the next written appeal on the agenda…

Members of U.S. Congress Commend Germany’s Genocide Recognition

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From left, representatives Adam Schiff, Frank Pallone, Robert Dold and Jim Costa

From left, representatives Adam Schiff, Frank Pallone, Robert Dold and Jim Costa

Urge Congress to Follow Suit
LOS ANGELES—Representative Adam Schiff, the lead sponsor of the Armenian Genocide Truth and Justice Resolution in Congress, as well as the co-chairmen of the Congressional Armenian Issues Caucus, representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Robert Dold (R-Ill.) released a statements Thursday following the German Bundestag’s historic vote to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Also applauding the Bundestag decision was California Congressman Jim Costa.

“I commend the overwhelming vote by the German Bundestag to recognize the Armenian Genocide. With this acknowledgement of the facts of the genocide, Germany joins a host of other European countries in recognizing and condemning the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. The German vote is particularly courageous as it comes in the midst of negotiations with Turkey regarding the flow of refugees and migrants into Europe. It sends a clear message that the truth of genocide cannot be silenced and that temporary expediency can never justify complicity in genocide denial,” Schiff said.

“Our own Congress should demonstrate the same willingness to defy Turkish threats, and the same moral integrity and commitment to principle by following Germany’s example,” asserted the Congressman.

“We applaud the German parliament for acknowledging the atrocities committed against the Armenian people for exactly what they were – genocide. The German people have had their own internal struggle in dealing with crimes against humanity in their history, and it is a powerful statement that they are now honoring the countless victims of the Armenian Genocide,” said Pallone and Dold.

“Now, it is time for the U.S. government to properly recognize historical fact and pass our bipartisan resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide. By recognizing these horrific crimes as genocide, we can once again renew our commitment to prevent such atrocities from occurring again. The United States must push Turkey to come to terms with its own history and remove their shrouded policy of denial from covering up one of the most horrific tragedies in world history,” added the Armenian Issues Caucus co-chairmen.

“Critics always say it is never the right time to recognize the Armenian Genocide; however, the German Parliament reaffirms now is the time. Yet the United States continues to fail to stand up and do the right thing” said Rep. Costa. “I applaud the German Parliament for condemning the horrific genocide that took place over 100 years ago by the Ottoman Empire. I urge the President and Congress to follow the lead of Germany and other brave countries to once and for all adopt a clear policy recognizing the Armenian Genocide,” said Rep. Costa.

Germany sparks Turkish outcry with Armenian genocide vote

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Untitled-1BERLIN/ANKARA | By Madeline Chambers and Tulay Karadeniz

(Reuters) Turkey recalled its ambassador to Germany on Thursday in protest against a parliament resolution declaring the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a “genocide” at a time when Europe is looking for Ankara’s help in the migrant crisis.

Turkey rejects the idea that the killings of Christian Armenians during World War One amounted to a genocide. Its Deputy Prime Minister said the vote was a “historic mistake”.

Even before Germany’s Bundestag lower house of parliament passed the symbolic resolution by an overwhelming majority, Turkey’s prime minister had condemned the motion as “irrational” and said it would test the friendship between the NATO partners.

Within two hours, Turkey had recalled its ambassador to Germany for consultations and summoned a top German diplomat to the foreign ministry in Ankara, according to officials.

Armed riot police were deployed outside the German consulate in Istanbul, near Taksim square, in case of protests.

President Tayyip Erdogan, in Nairobi, said the resolution would seriously affect relations with Germany and the government would discuss what steps Ankara would take.

“The way to close the dark pages in your own history is not by besmirching the history of other countries with irresponsible and groundless parliamentary decisions,” tweeted Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

A spokesman for the ruling AK Party responded swiftly to the vote, saying it had “seriously damaged” relations.

The timing could not be worse for Merkel, who is relying on the success of an EU-Turkey deal she has championed to stem the flow of migrants to Europe in return for cash, visa-free travel rights and accelerated talks on EU membership.

 

NEWSPAPER, Armenian genocide, and moral reasons of State

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genocide moral reasonThis is a new episode in the eternal conflict, so well described in the sixteenth century by Machiavelli, who opposes moral and political. It is even a textbook case. Germany she will take the chance to revive the refugee crisis in Europe, the name of the requirement ethics and historical truth? Thursday, 101 years after the fact, the Bundestag is to vote on a resolution recognizing the killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire were indeed genocide. The text, if adopted, is likely to irritate the highest point on the Turkish authorities. But with the approach of summer, Berlin has more than ever on the goodwill of Ankara to continue to curb the flow of refugees from the Middle East wars.

Only state in the world to admit himself guilty of genocide, that of the Jews during World War II, and take the consequences, since Germany is the moral values at the heart of its political action. It is even the purpose of the Federal Republic, which placed its Basic Law (constitution) of 1949 under the banner of human dignity. This imperative willingly displayed ethic clashes often with the requirements of realpolitik. German leaders, as they yield to them or not, are liable in one case the charges of hypocrisy, in the other those of naivety. In the refugee crisis, Angela Merkel has even had the part of its European partners, the two complaints simultaneously, in addition to that to the bed of the far right.

read more….

http://www.lopinion.fr/edition/international/genocide-armenien-morale-raison-d-etat-103752

Wednesday 1 June 2016
Stéphane © armenews.com