On April 26, 2019, MP Rubina Berardo’s document on ‘Voting to express sorrow for the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide’ has been included in the plenary session agenda of the parliament thanks to 18 MPs of the three most influential parties of the Portuguese parliament. Over 200 lawmakers voted in favor of the resolution.
“Several days before the voting the document has been presented for the MPs’ review, which later was adopted only with 4 abstentions, two of which were the members of Portugal-Turkey friendship group, and after the voting the Portuguese MPs paid tribute to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims with a moment of silence. We have started the preparation works several years ago when we had meetings with the members of the parliamentary factions. During these meetings we have introduced our issues of concern, such as the opportunity to create a Portugal-Armenia parliamentary friendship group and their attitude to the possible discussion of the Armenian Genocide issue in the Assembly. From the meetings it became clear which party was more keen on reacting to these issues, and thus we continued our mission by providing necessary information to the lawmakers about the historical facts and the already existing decisions”, Vahe Mkhitaryan said.
He noted that the international lawyers will soon make their assessments, pointing out the legal force and consequences of this historical decision.
“Absolute majority of the Portuguese MPs voted in favor of this statement, and the term Armenian Genocide is mentioned in the text for several times. From legal terms we can ...
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