President of the Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation (ICYF-DC), an affiliated institution to the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), criticized the German parliament's adoption of the resolution recognizing the killings of Armenians in 1915 events as a 'genocide' in a statement released on Friday."As a result the Board unanimously denounces the resolution as the one which has no legal basis and is contrary to historical facts. Considering that we haven't heard from German parliament any condemnation of genocidal act perpetrated by Armenian military forces in Azerbaijani town of Khojaly in 1992, neither on the 1915 massacres by Armenian terrorist groups in Anatolia against Muslim Turks, Kurds and others; we consider this voting as manifestation of "double-standards" and as an attempt to use an historical debate as a means of political pressure on Turkey," the President Elsah Iskandarov said.
Meanwhile, Iskandarov said that the ICYF will initiate programs and take diplomatic steps to educate the European youth on the historical events of 1915.
"In order to educate youth of both OIC countries and Europe in true history concerning the events of 1915, ICYF-DC will both initiate necessary diplomatic steps at the OIC forums and within the programme of "The OIC Memorial Day for commemoration of humanitarian catastrophes of Muslim communities throughout the Twentieth century" will activate its educational programme on Armenian massacres of Muslim peoples of Anatolia in 1915," he added.
The president underlined that the new motion will complicate and put in danger Germany's citizens of Turkish background, negatively impacting integration and inter-community bonding.
"ICYF-DC is concerned that such politicization of historical facts and blaming of one side for tragic events of complicated nature can potentially jeopardize the state of millions German citizens of Turkish origin and put entire Muslim communities of Germany and Europe at large under the pressure of smear campaign and further negatively impact inter-community and inter-cultural relations in Europe," said the head of ICYF-DC.
The lower house of Germany's Federal Parliament approved a controversial motion labeling the 1915 events as 'genocide' on Thursday, disregarding warnings from Turkey.
The resolution accuses the Ottoman government of 1915 of allegedly carrying out "systematic genocide" against Armenians, as well as other Christian minorities.
Turkey denies the alleged genocide, but acknowledges that there were casualties on both sides during the events taking place during World War I.
According to Turkey's viewpoint, deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia in 1915 occurred after some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties.
Turkey describes the 1915 events as a tragedy for both sides.
Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia plus international experts to tackle the issue.