“We reject statements and decisions that distort historical facts for political reasons and condemn those who persist in this error,” the Foreign Ministry in Ankara said on Sunday.
Biden is repeating a mistake he made last year, it said. Turkey was responding to a statement by Biden on Sunday. In it he wrote that the “Armenian genocide” was one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. “Today we remember the one and a half million Armenians who were abducted, massacred or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination, and we mourn the tragic deaths of so many,” Biden said. Last year, Biden recognized the massacres in Armenia as genocide, breaking a decades-old taboo. Ankara then demanded that the “serious mistake” be withdrawn.
According to historians, around 1.5 million Armenians were victims of systematic killings in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. As its legal successor, Turkey admits the massacre of 300,000 to 500,000 people, but rejects the classification as genocide.
The issue also sparked a heated domestic political debate in Turkey on Sunday. Armenian opposition politician Garo Paylan came under pressure for submitting a bill to the Speaker of Parliament recognizing the massacres as genocide. The application was immediately rejected. Fahrettin Altun, the Turkish President’s communications director, described the process as a “treason” and “slander” of the Turkish nation and its history.
Source: Nachrichten
