May 12, 2007 - 18:49 AMT
Basque Parliament recognizes Armenian Genocide
During a plenary meeting the Basque Parliament on April 20, 2007 approved an institutional declaration on the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, independent French journalist Jean Eckian told PanARMENIAN.Net.

The text says: "The first genocide scientifically planned, organized and carried out in the history of humanity, was perpetrated by the Young Turks and ideology of the Pan-Turkism against the Armenian people, which generated the murder of almost two million people. Crimes of this nature must be denounced to prevent their repetition. Human and national rights should be restored culprits should be condemned. This genocide must deserve the sanction of the Basque people and all the people of the world.

Basque people and institutions rejected ethnic, religious or political discrimination, and this Parliament always denounced all the acts of genocide, by considering that the walk of time does not imply the lack of memory. The denunciations of the genocides by our Parliament like those of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraki Kurdistan and the Ukrainian artificial famine of 1932-33, etc, are clear examples.

By this institutional declaration, the Parliament unifies its voice with those of the other institutions and Parliaments like European Parliament, Council of Europe and multitude of official and regional Parliaments, as well as the international institutions and humanitarians who denounced these facts."

The Basque Parliament included 6 articles in which it affirms the authentic character of the Armenian Genocide; denounces Turkey's systematic negationism and rejects the frontier and economic blockade imposed on Armenia. Moreover, the Parliament, under the signature of the president, Izaskun Bilbao Barandica, declares sympathy to the Armenian people, and supports their efforts to consolidate its democratic process and to affirm in the Caucasus area a stable space of cooperation and freedom.