Spain Senate refuses to pass bill recognizing Armenia massacre as ‘genocide’
Spain’s upper house of the parliament has dismissed a bill that recognizes the 1915 killing of Armenians as “genocide.”
“Genocide is not a simple word,” José María Chiquillo Barber, a senator for Valencia Province, said during the voting session on Wednesday, adding, “It is a historical and legal issue.”
“We as the parliament cannot put ourselves in the position of historians or a court,” he said.
The Senate of Spain rejected the proposal with 130 votes against and 14 in favor, along with 68 abstentions.
Also on Wednesday, Turkish Ambassador to Madrid Omer Onhon expressed the importance of Spain’s “unbiased approach” to the controversial issue.
Armenians believe that up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically slaughtered in eastern Turkey through mass killing, forced relocation and starvation, a process that began in 1915 and took place over several years during World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Further attention was attracted to the issue on April 12, when, in controversial remarks during a Sunday solemn mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis used the word “genocide” to describe the massacre. The pontiff said the incident was the “first genocide of the 20th century.”
On April 24, Armenia held a memorial ceremony at the Tsitsernakaberd complex in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to mark the centenary of the massacre of Armenians during World War I. Dignitaries and world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart, Francois Hollande, took part in the commemorative ceremony.
Ankara rejects the term “genocide” and says 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks perished between 1915 and 1917, in what the Turkish government sees as the “casualties” of World War I. It has called for the establishment of a joint commission of historians and archives to probe into the Ottoman-era massacre.
Over the past month, Armenians have taken part in demonstrations against Turkey’s refusal of the recognition of the genocide in several countries.
MIS/HJL/HMV
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