The European Parliament on Thursday approved its Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World, in which it urged all European Union member countries to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

“Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, [the European Parliament calls] on all the Member States legally to acknowledge it, and encourages the Member States and the EU institutions to contribute further to its recognition,” paragraph 77 of the report states.

Last week, the Political Assembly of the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European Parliament, adopted a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide and calling on Turkey to recognize it.

The EPP further said that Ankara should restore ancient churches and other Armenian cultural and historic sites in “historic Western Armenia” and return them to Armenians.

Successive Turkish governments have for decades vehemently denied that the 1915 mass killings and deportations of Ottoman Armenians constituted genocide.

Armenians prepare to mark the centenary of the Genocide with large-scale commemorative events in Armenia’s capital Yerevan as well as across Diaspora communities worldwide on April 24.