German
Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/186, pp. 23436-23437.
Right
honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
The
Armenians’ defensive fight in Bergkarabach is a just war. Azerbaijan is
conducting an illegal war of aggression and in that is supported by Turkey, as
we today have already laid out.
Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Herr
Hampel has described that quite otherwise.
They
commit war crimes, they employ internationally outlawed cluster bombs, they
bomb civilian targets, – with civilian victims as the consequence – cultural sites
and churches. The Church of the Redeemer in Shushi was twice attacked,
presumably with NATO weapons. My colleague Stefan Keuter received an
over-looked piece of metal in the area which made that plain – a NATO weapon,
as was said.
Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Have you
once explained that to Herr Hampel?
Prisoners
of war were killed and presumably even beheaded. Turkey sends Islamist
mercenaries from Syria and Iraq and thereby supports international terrorism.
Azerbaijani
representatives have repeatedly spoken of driving out the Armenians and even
threatened their annihilation. I am convinced that the national Islamist
Erdogan dreams of an all Ottoman empire on a greater scale in which the
Armenians plainly have no place. The Turks, as the people who perpetrated the
Armenian genocide of 1915-1916, still have not related themselves to that, and
have still not worked that out, and the Armenians have not forgotten that. The Armenians are fully in their rights to
defend their home. It is not to be expected of them to be under Ottoman rule or
under other foreign rule. The U.S. foreign ministry lists considerable human
rights violations in Azerbaijan: Arbitrary proceedings against journalists, arbitrary
arrests, torture, murder in police custody, systemic government corruption, and
many more other matters.
On the
other hand, there have been free elections in Bergkarabach. There rules an
admittedly young…democracy. We could see that for ourselves on earlier trips.
We have discovered Armenian culture in the greater part of Bergkarabach and the
Armenians have been settled in most of the territory for centuries. The few
mosques, cared for by the Armenians, are of Persian origin. Josef Stalin in
1921, against the then current law, arbitrarily and illegally incorporated
Bergkarabach into Azerbaijan.
Should
that nowadays be recognized as legal [rechtsstaatlich]?
Bergkarabach has a state territory, a state people and a state authority. It is
correspondingly a popular vote that was carried out.
The
Armenians in Bergkarabach are in acute danger. We have been able to apprise
ourselves of that in the area. I was there, with my colleague Stefan Keuter, in
contrast to you. We have formed a realistic picture on the ground.
Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU):
That exactly is the scandal!
We are
doing something; yet the Federal government and many who are present here today
say you want to again only talk and again do nothing.
Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): He
knows nothing of what he is saying!
Yet that is much too little.
Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Yet Herr
Hampel said that we can do nothing!
Haste
is imperative and neutrality implies assent. And who thinks he can keep himself
neutral, he is in error.
Erdogan
is instituting trouble in northern Iraq, in Syria, in Libya and he is stepping
forward aggressively against the West, lately against French President Macron.
A policy of appeasement has never yet been continued [weitergeführt], ladies and gentlemen.
Germany
has outfitted Turkey with modern armaments; that was always inexcusable, but
there now must be an end to that.
When
does the Federal government cease support of Turkey at all levels? That is the
question. And when does the Federal government engage and actively commit
itself to human rights, for peace and for a people’s right to
self-determination? We demand precisely that, the securing of the people’s
right to self-determination, and for Bergkarabach.
Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Herr Hampel
demands something quite different.
We
demand immediate steps to really – I say, really – end the bloodletting; thus,
not only with words, but also plainly with actions. Bergkarabach requires no
observers. On that account, we in this place demand real measures: An arms
embargo, sanctions, freezing of accounts and travel bans on the responsible
antagonists of the war; naturally, the immediate ending of the EU’s accession
negotiations with Turkey and the ending of the customs union. The agreed
armistice must be secured, in case of emergency by the UN’s blue helmets with a
robust mandate.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
