Germany's government has plans to distance itself from a resolution recognizing the historic Ottoman slaughter of Armenians as genocide, the German news magazine "Der Spiegel" reports. Berlin reportedly hopes the move might appease Ankara. By doing so, the report said, Chancellor Angela Merkel's government hoped to resolve a dispute that has seen German parliamentarians barred from visiting Bundeswehr troops stationed at the Incirlik airbase in eastern Turkey.
Agreement on this issue has already been reached. As Spiegel reported, citing its own sources, the Chancellor's Administration and the Foreign Minister of Germany have agreed that the speaker of the German government Stefan Seibert will speak to the press with a statement that the government has distanced itself from this resolution.
The publication notes that talks in the German coalition government on who will make the conciliatory statement regarding the resolution took a very long time. Neither German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier nor Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted to do this, since the public would regard it as bowing to Turkish President Erdogan. On the other hand, as Spiegel writes, in reality there are no changes in Merkel's and Steinmeier's position on the Bundestag resolution: both politicians initially believed that the 'Armenian Genocide' resolution is not the best idea.
