Azernews.Az

TEL AVIV – Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has said the Israeli parliament’s recognizing the alleged World War I-era genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey is "impossible", the IzRus news portal reported.

"There is not a chance that the Knesset will recognize the Armenian genocide…We cannot afford to tarnish our relations with Azerbaijan, our key strategic ally in the Islamic world, over controversial historical issues concerning century-long events," Ayalon said.

Israeli lawmakers have decided to discuss and draft a first-ever resolution on the alleged genocide, on the proposal of an MP from the leftist Meretz party. 20 members of the legislature’s steering board unanimously voted on May 18 to send the draft resolution to the parliamentary commission on education, culture and sports, which is chaired by Alex Miller, Ayalon’s counterpart in the Israel Our Home faction.

"We are not going to determine whether or not genocide occurred," Miller told IzRus. "It would be naive to presume that the commission on education, culture and sports would be an entity within which we will not only address issues dating back almost a hundred years but also our strategic relations with Israel’s key ally in the Islamic world."

The report said that the leader of Israel Our Home party, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his counterparts, supported by President Shimon Peres, are confident that recognizing the alleged genocide would jeopardize Israel’s strategic partnership with Azerbaijan.

Robert Ilatov, who chairs the Israel Our Home parliamentary faction, also heads the Israel-Azerbaijan inter-parliamentary assembly. Former resident of the Azerbaijani capital Baku, Joseph Shagal, is one of the influential members of the party as well.

The Meretz party raises the "genocide" issue in the Israeli parliament every year. Israel Our Home is opposed to the passage of a relevant bill and has successfully blocked these efforts so far.

An Israel Our Home member who asked not to be named said the party would avail of all "political resources" to avoid tension in Israel’s relations with Azerbaijan, adding that "we have ample potential to do that".

President Peres expressed a clear-cut stance on the issue as early as in 2001.

"It is meaningless to assert that Armenians were subjected to genocide, like the Jews," he said. "Likening the Armenians to the Jews is unacceptable."

According to historians, from 1915 to 1923, Armenians began an uprising, taking up arms against Turkey, and assisted Russia, one of Turkey’s enemies in WWI. To counter these actions, the Ottoman Empire decided to resettle the Armenians. However, the latter claim that their predecessors suffered "genocide" in the process. Ankara dismisses the claims and has repeatedly offered to research the events through a joint commission of historians.