Czech President Milos Zeman says he will ask parliament to adopt a resolution recognizing the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide.

Zeman was speaking in Yerevan on June 8 during talks with his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sarkisian.

During Sarkisian's official visit to Prague in January 2014, Zeman publicly called the killings of Armenians during World War I a genocide.

The Czech president's latest comments come after Germany on June 2 became the 23rd country to recognize the killings as genocide.

The World War I-era mass slaughter and deportation of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks is considered by many historians and several countries a genocide.

Turkey objects, saying that Armenians died in much smaller numbers and because of civil strife rather than a planned Ottoman government effort to annihilate the Christian minority.

Based on reporting by iDNES.cz and Cesky Rozhlas