Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nablandian welcomes the German President Joachim Gauck's statement on the Armenian Genocide Centennial.
"Germany honors the memory of the innocent Armenians massacred on the Ottoman Empire under a pretext of the WWI. Joachim Gauck's statement is important not only for the process of the international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, but also is a great contribution to the world community's efforts towards prevention of genocides and other crimes against humanity," Nalbanian said in a statement.
In a first for a German official, President Joachim Gauck called the campaign against Armenians a planned crime that meets the definition of genocide and said German actions at the time were partly to blame.
"The fate of the Armenians is an example of the history of mass exterminations, ethnic cleansing, deportations and, yes, the genocides that left such a terrible mark on the 20th century," Gauck said in an advance copy of a speech at the Berlin Cathedral on Thursday. "This planned, criminally calculated act struck Armenians for one reason alone: because they were Armenians," Bloomberg quotes the president as saying.