Czech Senate issues resolution condemning Armenian genocide

Prague, May 20 (CTK) – The Czech Senate has condemned the crimes against humanity committed by Nazis during World War Two and the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire 105 years ago in a resolution issued today.

The Senate has also condemned the annihilation of ethnic and religious groups anywhere in the world today.

The resolution was passed on the 75th anniversary of Victory Day at the instigation of Senate deputy chairman Milan Štěch (Social Democrats, ČSSD).

The upper house did not comply with the efforts of Tomáš Jirsa (Civic Democratic Party, ODS) to condemn the persecution of Christians in countries with a different religion in the same manner.

TOP 09 deputy chairman Tomáš Czernin demanded that Communist reprisals in the former Soviet Union countries be also condemned, but this proposal was also rejected.

Štěch said the addenda had not corresponded with the intentions of the resolution in question.

The Senate passed the same resolution as the Chamber of Deputies three years ago. At that time, the Chamber of Deputies condemned the genocide of Armenians just like Nazi crimes against the Jewish, Slav and Roma populations.

President Miloš Zeman, too, has labelled the massacre of Armenians a genocide.

Turkey protested at the time, to which the Czech Foreign Ministry replied that the evaluations were not legally binding.

Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, refuses to interpret the events as a genocide. It says the information about 1.5 million killed Armenians is overblown and that the dead were victims of a civil war, not genocide.