Member of German Leftist Party Denies Genocide

Armenians in Germany call on the Bundestag to condemn the Genocide
Berlin, April 2005 (Source: Central Council of Armenians in Germany)

A Bundestag parliamentarian who belongs to the Linkspartei.PDS, the successor of the former East German Communist Party, is in the news for denying the Armenian Genocide. Hakki Keskin first publicly entered the ranks of the negationists when he condemned the June 2005 Bundestag resolution which

mourn[ed] the actions of the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire which almost led to the complete extermination of the Armenians in Anatolia.

At the time, the two lawmakers from his party sitting in the parliament voted for the resolution. But Keskin's position, exposed in a recent newspaper report, has drawn official protest from the Central Council of Armenians in Germany, who have asked the leftist party for clarification.

On his website, Keskin parrots the standard denialist line:

Personally, I believe that the deportation of hundreds of thousands human beings, whatever their motives may have been, was profoundly inhumane and wrong. I want to emphasize that Turkey does not deny the fact that as part of this deportation hundreds of thousands Armenians but also Muslims died.

Keskin also backs Erdogan's calls for a UN-monitored Turkish-Armenian historical commission to evaluate the evidence.

Now, the vice-chair of the party's Bundestag-caucus [Vize-Fraktionschef] Bodo Ramelow has stooped so low as to accuse the Central Council of "instrumentalizing the victims of the genocide" (Tagesspiegel)and even giving credence to Keskin's statements to the effect that the killings of Armenian "had a pre- and post-history" [Vor- und Nachgeschichte] which involved atrocities by Armenians against Turks.

Meanwhile, both Keskin and Ramelow are spreading the usual stories about the "Armenian lobby," which is allegedly stifling freedom of speech. Keskin has even planned an event to examine the lobby's activities.