German lawmakers passed a resolution on Thursday recognising the World War I massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, drawing a furious rebuke from Turkey which called it a “historic mistake”.
Only one MP voted against and another abstained, as parliament approved overwhelmingly by a show of hands the resolution titled “Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916”.
In the public gallery of the Bundestag, people held up banners saying “thank you” as the parliamentary speaker announced the result of the vote to applause.
Armenia Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian praised the decision as “Germany’s valuable contribution not only to the international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, but also to the universal fight for the prevention of genocides, crimes against humanity.”
But Turkey swiftly condemned the resolution. “The German parliament’s recognition of ‘distorted and groundless’ allegations as ‘genocide’ is a historic mistake,” Deputy Prime Minister and Government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said on Twitter, calling the resolution “null and void.”
Ahead of the vote, Ankara had warned that the vote was a “test of friendship”.