March 22, 2005 - 08:49 AMT
BUNDESTAG PARTY GROUPS UNANIMOUS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL, ITS SPONSOR CONSIDERS
Party groups of the German Federal Parliament have shown unusual unanimity and solidarity regarding a bill titled Commemoration Day of Armenians on the 90th anniversary of the slaughter April 24, 1915 - Germany should promote rapprochement of Turks and Armenians. It was stated by German MP, President of the German-Caucasian parliamentary group in Bundestag Christoph Bergner, who had sponsored the bill, Arminfo news agency reported. In his words, thus the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Socialist Union intend to enlist the support of representatives of Bundestag other political factions in the course of the debate over the bill in April. "We are convinced that we will have common initiatives with one or even several political parties," Bergner noted, adding that, as exceeding the initially marked progress was not planned, the issue of further lobbying of the initiative was not discussed. The respective resolution can be adopted before the Parliament recess in June. Speaking of the possible interrelation between the CDU/CSU attitude to the prospects of Turkish full membership in the European Union and the Armenian Genocide issue being urgent in Germany, the bill sponsor noted that the faction has come against Turkey's accession to the EU and for granting Privileged Partnership status to it, which is a bit less than EU membership. "We suppose that the problem raised on our initiative does not refer to the issue whether Turkey will become an EU member or it will get a privileged partner status," Bergner stated.