Egyptian Member of Parliament Mostafa Bakri has called on parliament and the government to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Bakry and 336 MPs have urged the parliament to approve a draft resolution in favour of officially recognizing the death of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman state in 1915 as a “genocide”.
Bakry also asked for calling on the United Nations and other international bodies to take necessary legal action to ensure the international community’s recognition of this crime and its ensuing effects, reported Al-Youm Al-Sabie.
”Parliament must hold a special session on this subject because it was a crime of mass extermination that should be condemned by all world parliaments,” said Bakri.
Bakri said that his proposal “comes after the German parliament voted last month in favor of recognizing the 1915 massacre as a genocide, and many other countries are expected to follow suit.”
Turkey does not officially recognize that the Armenian genocide took place. Following Germany’s recent recognition of the genocide, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recalled Turkey’s ambassador to Germany for “consultation,” with the Turkish government saying that the move by Berlin was “null and void.”
Bakri’s proposal comes after another Egyptian MP, Emad Mahrous, demanded on Sunday that the government grant political asylum to Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, who is in a self-imposed exile in the United States. Gulen is accused by the Turkish government of being behind the failed coup attempt in Turkey on July 15.
Talaat Khalil, an MP who supported Bakri’s draft resolution, told reporters that genocide should be condemned by all world governments and parliaments.
Khalil added that Egypt had close relations with both the Armenian people and the Turkish people.
”Egypt has always been a shelter for the Armenians since the 1915 massacre,” said Khalil, arguing that “out of its political responsibility, Egypt’s parliament must move to recognize the ‘genocide’ against Armenians.”
Khalil concluded by saying that “this should not be taken as a hostile move by the Egyptian parliament against Turkey, but should be seen as a move that comes out of purely humanist considerations.”
Relations between Turkey and Egypt have been strained since the 2013 military coup, led by Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, that overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Erdogan’s AKP government. Erdogan has repeatedly slammed Al-Sisi’s military coup.
