[JURIST] The European Parliament [official website] approved a resolution on Wednesday calling [press release] the massacre of Armenians during World War I a “genocide,” while urging Armenia and Turkey to reconcile their diplomatic relations. The resolution comes days after Pope Francis instigated outrage [BBC report] by using the same term in Turkey. Members of the European Parliament commended the statement of the Pope, “honoring the century of the Armenian genocide in a spirit of peace and reconciliation.” The Parliament has asked Turkey to “conduct in good faith an inventory of the Armenian cultural heritage destroyed or ruined during the past century within its jurisdiction.” The Parliament also proposed an “International Remembrance Day for Genocides,” so as to remind all people, and all nations, of the right to peace and dignity.

In recent years Armenian nationals have fought with the international community to recognize the killing of 1.5 million Armenian citizens as genocide [JURIST news archive]. Turkey has long disputed the numbers, alleging the killings were a result of a civil war that took place after the collapse of the Ottoman empire. In December 2009 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled [JURIST report] that prosecutions for denying that the killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was a genocide are an attack on freedom of expression. In 2009 Turkey and Armenia signed [JURIST report] a landmark accord in Switzerland to normalize relations between the two countries and open up borders. In 2010 a spokesperson for the US State Department stated that the Obama administration opposed a vote [JURIST report] before the House of Representatives on a resolution [HR 252 materials] branding the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Turkish forces as genocide. In September 2014 the Parliament of Greece ratified a bill that criminalizes the denial of the Armenian Genocide [JURIST report].