GERMANY’S coalition parties drew up a motion yesterday on the 100th anniversary of the mass slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, designating the killings as genocide.

The non-binding text, to be debated in the Bundestag on Friday, says that the Armenians’ fate is “exemplary for the history of mass destruction, ethnic cleansing, expulsions and genocides by which the 20th century is marked in such a terrible way.”

It stresses Germany’s awareness of the “uniqueness” of the nazi Holocaust.

Berlin has previously avoided referring to the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide, while Turkey rejects the use of the term.

Coalition spokesman Steffen Seibert said yesterday that “the government, after the talks that have taken place, stands behind this motion.”

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he understood why “one could want to summarise what happened then by the term ‘genocide’.”

However, he expressed concern that “an ever more charged political debate” could obstruct serious dialogue between Turks and Armenians.