ANKARA, Feb 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Turkey said it strongly condemned French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to declare April 24 as a day for the commemoration of the Armenian genocide, an issue that caused regular friction between Turkey and European Union nations.
“We condemn and reject attempts by Mr Macron, who is facing political problems in his own country, to save the day by turning historic events into political material,” Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a statement.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.
Macron on Tuesday said France would make April 24 a “national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide”.
Speaking to the Armenian community at a dinner in Paris, Macron said:
“France is, first and foremost, the country that knows how to look history in
the face, which was among the first to denounce the killing of the Armenian
people, which in 1915 named genocide for what it was, which in 2001 after a long struggle recognised it in law.”
For decades, Armenia and Turkey have been at odds over whether the World War I massacres and deportations of Armenians by their Ottoman rulers should be described as genocide.
Turkey vehemently rejects that the massacres, imprisonment and forced
deportation of Armenians from 1915 — which Armenia says left 1.5 million
dead — constituted a genocide.
Macron’s remarks at the dinner, organised by the Coordinating Council of
Armenian Organisations of France, honoured a campaign promise from his
election in 2017. — NNN-AGENCIES
