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An Armenian pressure group criticized the European Union on Tuesday for basing its decision to partially suspend membership talks with Turkey only on a dispute over Cyprus.

It complained the EU ignored human rights issues and the controversy over the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians.

“The silence of the (EU) member countries on other Turkish violations are a lapse that seriously endangers European integration,” said a statement from the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy.

EU foreign ministers on Monday agreed to suspend membership talks with Turkey in a number of areas ranging from fisheries to external relations in response to Ankara’s refusal to respect an agreement to open its ports to ships and planes from Cyprus.Although the decision was a blow to Turkey’s EU membership aspirations, the Brussels-based Armenian lobby group said it did not go far enough. It said the EU should have also punished Turkey for violations of human rights, treatment of minorities, a blockade of Armenia’s border and a refusal to recognize the 1915-1919 killings of Armenians as genocide. [Read more]