Turks and Azerbaijanis in Germany protest against "Armenian genocide" bill

Baku. 2 June. REPORT.AZ/ Turkish German organizations took to the streets in Berlin on Wednesday to protest Bundestag‘s vote on a bill which refers to the 1915 incidents in Ottoman Turkey as an “Armenian genocide”.

Report informs referring to the Turkish media, Turkish, German and Azerbaijani flags were carried at the protest during which thousands of Turks walked from Potsdamer Platz Square to Brandenburger Tor near German parliament.

“We did not commit a genocide, we defended our homeland”, “Federal Parliament is not a court”, “No to Turcophobia” and “Politicians are not judges”, demonstrators chanted calling the controversial resolution an attempt to damage Turkish-German relations.

The bill on so called Armenian genocide will be brought to Bundestag agenda Thursday, June 2.

German lawmakers are preparing to pass a resolution Thursday that recognises the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, despite stark warnings from Turkey that the vote could hurt ties.

Put forward by the ruling left-right coalition and the opposition Greens, the resolution entitled "Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916" also carries the contentious word throughout the text.

The vote comes at a particularly awkward time as Germany and the European Union need Turkey to help stem a record influx of migrants even as tensions are rising between both sides over human rights and other issues.

Yerevan has long sought international recognition of the "genocide", but Ankara rejects the use of the term to describe the World War I-era killings and argues that it was a collective tragedy in which equal numbers of Turks and Armenians died.

Armenia and Turkey have been at loggerheads over the massacre.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.

But modern Turkey, the successor state to the Ottomans, says that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian troops.

More than 20 nations, including France and Russia, have recognised the Armenian genocide, but Germany has not.