YEREVAN. – The German Bundestag’s recognition of Armenian Genocide is more of a moral victory, Armenian turkologist Ruben Melkonyan said at a press conference on Saturday. 

But Melkonyan added that he considers the euphoria, which followed the Bundestag’s adoption of the respective resolution, to be senseless. In his words, the Armenians’ benefit from this development is the fact that the Armenian Genocide issue is on the pages of international press, for the past several days.

When asked why the Bundestag made this move at this time, the turkologist noted that Turkish-German relations are in a quite difficult situation at present, and Europe needs deterrent mechanisms against Ankara.

He proposed to view the said Bundestag resolution as Germany’s test in democratic and universal values.

“I consider the next step to be more important,” stressed Ruben Melkonyan. “There are very important documents in Germany’s archives. It’s time to take them out [of these archives] as a proof of the fact, as a means to further strengthen the document base of Armenian Genocide.”

The Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, on Thursday formally recognized the Armenian Genocide, with the aforesaid resolution and with only one vote against and one abstention. The resolution also notes that the Bundestag regrets that the German government at the time did nothing to stop this crime against humanity, and therefore the Bundestag also acknowledges the respective historical accountability of Germany.