Shortly before his visit to Turkey German Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed support to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's latest proposal to create a joint Armenian-Turkish historical commission to study the facts of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, AFP-Istanbul reported. In Schroeder's words, Erdogan's proposal should be supported. The German Chancellor assured that the issue of the Armenian Genocide "will never be a precondition for Turkey's accession to the EU." He also noted that the bill on the Armenian Genocide being considered in Bundestag does not complicate the German-Turkish relations. «It is quite normal for the Parliaments to deal with historical issues,» noted Gerhard Schroeder.