Armenian patriarch condemns Germany's 'genocide' motion

By Hatice Ozdemir

ANKARA (AA) - Istanbul’s Armenian Patriarch on Tuesday condemned the politicization of the deaths of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 following a German resolution calling the killings genocide.

In a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Archbishop Aram Atesyan said: “Like we have expressed many times before, it is really sad that a pain which created trauma among the Armenian people is used in the political arena.”

The archbishop said it was unacceptable for the representatives of German citizens to express an opinion or make laws on an issue that has nothing to do with the German people.

The letter is the latest development following the Bundestag’s symbolic motion last week referring to the deaths of Armenians during World War I as genocide.

Turkey has always acknowledged the tragedy of deaths on both sides in eastern Anatolia when some of the Ottoman Armenian population rose up in support of invading Russian forces. It has repeatedly called for the creation of an international commission of historians to resolve the dispute.