German MPs defy Turkey to condemn Armenia massacres as 'genocide'

German MPs on Friday defied their own government to condemn the Armenian massacres by the Ottoman Turks in the first world war as "genocide", rejecting official attempts to restrain their rhetoric for fear of angering Turkey.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier sat stony-faced during a Bundestag debate as speakers openly spoke of genocide to mark the 100th anniversary of the killings in which up to 1.5m Armenians died.

"What happened in the middle of the first world war in the Ottoman Empire, under the eyes of the world media was a genocide," said Bundestag Speaker Norbert Lammert. "It did not remain the last of the 20th century."

German parliamentarians have now joined politicians in other countries in formally branding the killings as genocide - despite virulent protests from Turkey, a Nato country and would-be EU member which plays a key role in the fight against Islamist terror in the Middle East.

It was not immediately clear how Ankara would respond. It recalled its ambassador to Vienna this week after the Austrian parliament backed a cross-party genocide declaration.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis condemned the massacres as a genocide and the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on Ankara to recognise the killings as such.

France, which has a large ethnic Armenian population, condemned the killings as genocide as long ago as 1998.

The US, despite its own influential Armenian minority, has declined to follow suit for fear of upsetting Turkey. President Barack Obama, who used the word genocide before taking office but has since avoided the term, this week spoke of "terrible carnage".

In Berlin, the government tried to hold the line, with Mr Steinmeier saying a week ago that past atrocities could "not be reduced to a single word".

But, under pressure from MPs, party managers in the ruling coalition of Ms Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU and the social democrats were forced into sharpening a parliamentary declaration. After much debate earlier this month, it included the words: "Their [the Armenians'] fate stands as an example of the history of the mass exterminations, the ethnic cleansings, the expulsions, and, yes, the genocides with which the 20th century is marked in so terrible a way."

But even this was not enough for leading politicians. President Joachim Gauck, who plays a largely ceremonial role, was the first to break the taboo. In a church commemoration on Thursday, he went further than his official text, which quoted the parliamentary statement, and spoke directly of "the genocide of the Armenians".

In parliament, no vote was taken, but successive MPs followed Mr Lammert, a member of Ms Merkel's CDU, in condemning "the genocide". Speakers also highlighted the role of Germany, Turkey's first world war ally, in the killings, as German officers helped command the Ottoman forces and the German government ignored or played down reports of the killings.

The MPs' debate does not bind government policy. Ms Merkel's spokesman said the government stood by the pre-agreed parliamentary declaration.

The discussions generated by the 100th anniversary of the massacres, have further strained already-difficult relations between Ankara and several allies and neighbours.

But many countries have resisted public pressure from Armenian communities and other groups and stuck with a determination not to speak of genocide.

In the US, a White House spokesman explained Mr Obama's position by emphasising Turkey's strategic importance, in particular its "critical role" in confronting " the horrific atrocities that occur today in both Iraq and Syria".

Turkey meanwhile held its own centennial commemoration, attended by the Australian and New Zealand prime ministers and Britain's Prince Charles, to mark the bloody first world war battles in the Gallipoli peninsula.

Serzh Sargsyan, Armenia's president, suggested Ankara scheduled the Gallipoli event on Friday to "overshadow" the massacre's commemoration. On Friday he hosted presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Francois Hollande of France and other dignitaries at a ceremony in the Armenian capital, Yerevan.

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