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Turkey Warns Germany Against Recognizing Armenian 'Genocide'

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Edelgard Bulmahn, deputy speaker of the German Bundestag, lays a wreath at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on May 24.
Edelgard Bulmahn, deputy speaker of the German Bundestag, lays a wreath at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan on May 24.

Turkey has warned Germany against the adoption of a parliamentary resolution recognizing the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as "genocide."

The German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, is set to vote this week on the resolution.

The adoption of the text would “harm” the diplomatic, economic, political, commercial, and military ties between the two countries, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on May 31.

The World War I-era mass slaughter and deportation of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks is considered by many historians and several nations as genocide.

Turkey objects, saying that Armenians died in much smaller numbers and because of civil strife rather than a planned Ottoman government effort to annihilate the Christian minority.

The vote comes at a sensitive time for relations between Turkey and Germany. Bonn and the European Union need Ankara to honor an agreement to stem the past year's massive migration of refugees through Turkey to the EU.

Moreover, Germany has a large ethnic Turkish population of about 3 million, which has come out against the measure.

"Germany must be careful concerning its relations with Turkey," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said.

"I do not think that the German parliament will destroy this relationship for the sake of two or three politicians" who put the resolution before the legislature.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

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