The German Government abstains from using the "genocide" term when describing the persecutions against Armenians during WWI, says Christiane Wirtz, Deputy Spokesperson for the German Government.
According to Deutsche Welle, she says that the Federal Government condemns the "massacre" and "deportation" of the Armenians and exerts effort for the sides' reconciliation. She points out that Berlin's authorities do not comment on Pope Francis' statements about the mass killings of Armenians.
On April 24 the Bundestag will have a discussion on the occasion of the centenary of the 1915 events. The grand coalition of the Christian Democratic Union- Christian Social Union (CDU-CSU) alliance and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), as well as the Green Party and the Left Party have submitted their draft resolutions. The draft resolution of the grand coalition speaks of "the memory of the massacre and the deportation of Armenians", whereas the other two factions directly speak of the Genocide. In early April, Tagesspiegel reported that the statement of the grand coalition initially included the term "genocide", however, it was withdrawn under the pressure of the factions' leaders and the German Foreign Ministry. German Green Party leader Cem Ozdemir supposes that the German Government evades using the "genocide" word for fear of infuriating Ankara.