On the occasion of the 98th year of the beginning of Medz Yegern, BDP deputy Ertuğrul Kürkçü spoke at the European Parliament.
This is his speech.

In Istanbul, on 24 April 1915, 240 Armenian opinion leaders, including parliamentary deputies were arrested incognito under orders by the then ruling İttihad ve Terakki Party government. Shortly the number of arrests reached 2,345, 761 of whom lost their lives in Central Anatolia where they were deported without any legal prosecution and court decision.

This was the prelude to the forcible deportation of Armenian subjects of the Empire to the deserts of Syria, under the irrelevant pretext of counter-insurgency measures and first world war necessities. The defenseless convoys of women, children and elderly ended up nowhere, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were annihilated, finally depriving Eastern Anatolia from one of its autochthonous peoples, leading to the devastation of dozens of cities and towns which lost their essential human resources, productive powers…

I would like to express our condolences in the name of our group to the grandsons and grandaughters of the victims of the Metz Yegern, the Great Crime, as the Armenian people name this henious crime against humanity.

And I would also like to express that we in spite of official obstacles are determined that the historical realities pertaining to Medz Yeghern will be unfolded and become public knowledge, provided freedom of expression and freedom of conscience is rooted in Turkey. This is essential for relieving the new generations of the distorted narrations of the past and establish mutual understanding and construct new ways of communication for reconciliation and refraternization between the Kurds, Turks and Armenians, all of whom have suffered from atrocities, massacres, deportations, exiles essentially caused by the partitioning and repartitioning of the world and regional spheres of influence between the great powers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Yesterday, across Turkey in Istanbul, İzmir, Ankara, Diyarbakir thousands of demonstrators, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, grandsons and granddaughters of both the aggressors and the victims of the past centuries altogether commemorated the victims of Medz Yeghern and without considerable official impediment, and with relatively bigger media coverage.

We would like to welcome this attitude as a sign of the establishment of a broader understanding in Turkey for a discussion of the past freed from prejudices and hatred.

We would also like to express our expectations that the ongoing talks between the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and Turkish government officials leads to a conclusion of the armed conflict in Turkey, which we hope will bring Turkey to the verge of a full democracy where differences will be welcomed as a source of richness and not a conflict.