Turkey Slams Report Calling for Armenian Genocide Recognition

(c) AP Photo
Middle East
18:00 14.03.2015(updated 18:41 14.03.2015)

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Tanju Bilgic called the European
Parliament’s report urging the EU member states to recognize the
Armenian genocide “problematic and controversial in all the aspects.”

(c) East News/ Yvan TRAVERT
Recognition of Armenian Genocide in Interests of Turkey, Armenia: Diplomat
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The European Parliament’s report urging the EU
member states to recognize the Armenian genocide is concerning and
“far from historic reality,” Turkey’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesman
Tanju Bilgic said Saturday.

“We regret that this [European Parliament’s] statement is problematic
and controversial in all the aspects,” Bilgic said in a statement
published on the ministry’s website.

The European Parliament’s Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy
published earlier this week called “ahead of the 100th anniversary of
the Armenian genocide, on all the Member States legally to acknowledge
it, and encourages the Member States and the EU institutions to
contribute further to its recognition.”

(c) AFP 2015/ FREDERICK FLORIN
Amal Clooney Criticizes Turkey on Freedom of Speech Hypocrisy
The Armenian Genocide refers to the Armenia’s claims of the Ottoman
government’s extermination of Armenians in their historical homeland
during the First World War.

Yerevan says that over 1.5 million Armenians were killed during the
mass genocide.

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, refuses to
recognize the Armenian Genocide. Ankara argues that the number of
people killed is hugely exaggerated, and that the Ottoman Empire was
simply responding to Armenian attacks on Turkish population while it
was trying to establish the Armenian state on the Anatolian peninsula.

Commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide
in the Ottoman Empire will take place in Yerevan on April 24, 2015.