MOSCOW, February 13. /TASS/. The Syrian parliament has voted in favor of the resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide on the territory of the Ottoman Empire in early 20th century, SANA news agency informed.
The Syrian People’s Assembly (parliament) unanimously approved the bill, describing the genocide as "one of the most atrocious crimes against humanity."
The Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day is marked annually in Armenia on April 24. On that day in 1915, deportations of Armenian intelligentsia began from Constantinople (Ottoman Empire). The term "Armenian Genocide" is used to describe the mass deportation and killings of Armenians in the Ottoman empire during the First World War (1914-1918).
Turkey does not accept the use of the term "genocide" regarding it as what it calls the "events of 1915," saying that there was a fratricidal war in the Ottoman Empire back then and all sides had suffered heavy casualties. Ankara opened its Ottoman archives and invited historians to study them in order to develop an objective approach to the events that took place over a century ago. Turkey responds with fervent zeal to any attempts to recognize the fact of the Armenian Genocide.