Dutch parliament recognizes Armenian genocide, gov't doesn't follow

THE HAGUE - The Dutch parliament recognized the Armenian genocide by majority on Thursday evening, but the government will not follow this recognition, said caretaking Minister of Foreign Affairs Sigrid Kaag.

Last week, the Dutch parliament already announced its intention to recognize the Armenian genocide after ChristenUnie (Christian Union) MP Joel Voordewind had proposed a motion to do so. A large majority of the House of Representatives voted in favor, which was the first time for the Dutch parliament.

In 2004, the House of Representatives also supported a similar motion, but at that time it did not vote to call the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One the Armenian genocide so explicitly.

The three MPs of migrant-party Denk, with a large input of Dutch Turks, were the only opponents of the recognition on Thursday.

According to Denk MP Tunahan Kuzu, history is too one-sidedly explained. Kuzu stated that due to the recognition groups of people are being set up against each other and that the tensions will also rise in the Netherlands.

As in 2004, the government will not speak out on whether it was a genocide, emphasized Kaag.

Although the House of Representatives recognized the Armenian genocide, the government continues to talk about "the issue of the Armenian genocide". She stressed that there is no binding UN Security Council resolution that speaks of the Armenian genocide, nor a verdict by an international court.

The exact name of the mass killing of Armenians has been a sensitive subject for years. Turkey denies it was genocide and has strong objections to the use of the term genocide.

According to Kaag, the government wants to be cautious about applying the term genocide. "But it remains very clear to the government that a large-scale massacre has taken place," she added.

According to the majority of the House of Representatives, recognition is a first step towards reconciliation.

"If we do not remove the sorrow from the past, we will never get to the desired reconciliation, and the conflict between Turkey and Armenia will never disappear", said D66 (Democrats) MP Sjoerd Sjoerdsma during the debate on Thursday.

Kaag added that she will send a member of the government to the 103rd anniversary commemoration of the Armenian genocide on April 22 this year in the Armenian capital Yerevan.

This will be done for the first time and thereafter the plan is to send such a high diplomate every five years. Who will be present at the commemoration is not yet known. Previously, the Netherlands was present at the commemoration with only an ambassador or an MP.

"With this presence, the government shows respect for all victims and surviving relatives of all murders of minorities," the minister said during the debate.

According to Voordewind, the initiator of the motion, the presence of the cabinet at the commemoration is a big step forward. "We house the capital of international law, and we have to make clear statements about things that really go wrong in the world," he said.

The question is what the recognition by the parliament will do to the tensions between the Netherlands and Turkey. These tensions rose to a peak in March last year when the Dutch cabinet refused to let Turkish governors to campaign in the Netherlands for a "yes" in a Turkish constitutional referendum. As a result of the diplomatic tensions with Turkey, the Netherlands has not had an ambassador in the country since that time.

"We strongly condemn the decisions of the Dutch House of Representatives recognizing the events of 1915 as genocide," the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in a press release. "The baseless decisions of the House of Representatives ... are neither legally binding nor have any validity."

However, the Turkish Ministry also stated to have taken note of the Dutch government's statement that "it will not follow the House in its assessment recognizing the 1915 events as genocide and that being represented at a commemoration ceremony in Yerevan would not imply recognition of the events as genocide".