ANKARA - Turkish parliament issued on Wednesday a declaration against the Armenian genocide allegations.
In the declaration, the parliament expressed its belief that it was for the benefit of Turkey and Armenia to reconcile, end prejudices and create a climate which would enable the two nations to share a common future based on tolerance, friendship and cooperation.
Noting that the ruling and main opposition parties of Turkey laid down a proposal to bring historical realities to daylight, the declaration said, ''this proposal envisages Turkey and Armenia to form a common commission comprised of their own historians, search their national archives without limitations, make public the results of their searches, and set the working methods of the commission.
The declaration pointed out that Turkish parliament was totally adopting and supporting this historic proposal, and went on saying, ''but, cooperation of the Armenian government is obligatory to launch this initiative. Unless Turkey and Armenia look at the history from the same perspective, they will only leave prejudices, enmity and revenge to their children and forthcoming generations. What is reasonable for Turkey and Armenia is to end taboos with a joint initiative, clarify all sides of what they had experienced, and be ready to settle old scores with their history. This is the only way to prevent the past from darkening today and future.''
''If Armenia wants to establish good neighborly relations with Turkey and enhance its cooperation, it should not hesitate to adopt Turkey's proposal to re-assess their common history. Also, the parliament would like to stress that every good-willed country and statesman that wants to contribute to world peace and stability, should consider Turkey's proposal as positive, leaving aside his/her/its internal political views. In this context, countries which want betterment of Turkish-Armenian relations and settlement of peace and stability in the Caucasus should support this initiative, and refrain from acts which will harm this initiative,'' wrote the declaration.
The declaration noted that countries which made decisions on Armenian claims at their parliaments had the prior responsibility regarding this matter, and said that these countries should support Turkish parliament's proposal to form a joint history commission if they wanted improvement of Turkish-Armenian relations.
In its declaration, the parliament condemned the move of the parliaments to make a decision about this matter for political purposes.
The declaration of the parliament added that it was impossible for Turkey to base its history on some one-sided and misleading assessments.