Bulgarian parliament voted down ATAKA party’s motion recognizing the Armenian Genocide, Zaman reported.

The party called on the parliament to demand compensation from Turkey for the Bulgarians deported from Thrakia, describe the events taking place in the Ottoman Empire in 1396-1913 as the Bulgarian Genocide and recognize the fact of the Armenian Genocide.

The parliament rejected the motion, which “could have negative impact on the Bulgarian-Turkish relations.”

ATAKA party was formed in 2005 in Sofia. The party has 20 principles, including secession from NATO and abstention from taking part in military unions. It also opposes Bulragia’s membership in the European Union.

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide scholars and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has been also recognized by influential media including The New York Times, BBC, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.