Turkish
President Erdogan has slammed the world leaders for recognizing the 1915
massacre of Armenians as genocide. Erdogan said countries like Germany, France
and Russia should first "clean their own stains."
Deutsche Welle, 25 April 2015
Recep
Tayyip Erdogan hits out at European Union and the US for using the word
genocide to describe the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago.
The Turkish
president accused Germany, France and Russia of "supporting claims based
on Armenian lies."
Erdogan
also accused the United States of siding with Armenia, despite the fact that US
President Barack Obama stopped short of calling the killings as
"genocide" and instead used the Armenian term Medz Yeghern (great
catastrophe) for the World War I killings.
"The
latest countries to speak of genocide are Germany, Russia and France. What
happened during the two world wars that had been initiated by Germany in the
past century is before our eyes," President Erdogan was quoted by Turkey's
state-run Anadolu news agency as saying on Saturday.
Demonstrations are being held in several countries to mark the 100 years of Armenian killings |
"First,
they (Germany, Russia and France) must, one by one, clean the stains on their
own histories," he added.
The US is
siding with "hatred," the president said, also slamming the European
Union, which on April 15 voted to call the events genocide.
"Hey
European Union! Don't offer us any thoughts. Keep them to yourself,"
Erdogan said.
During the
centenary commemorations of the massacre on Friday in Armenia, French President
Francois Holland said Turkey must recognize the killings as genocide, whereas
Russian President Vladimir Putin also used the word which Ankara strongly
objects to.
Historians
estimate up to 1.5 million Armenian people were murdered around the time of the
First World War. Turkey says the victims of the event were merely casualties of
war, arguing that the toll has been exaggerated.
Earlier
this month, Pope Francis described the killings as "the first genocide ofthe 20th century," drawing the wrath of Turkey, which recalled its Vatican
envoy in protest.
'Confronting
history'
Earlier in
the week, German President Joachim Gauck called Turkey's Ottoman Empire killings of Armenians "genocide" at a memorial service in Berlin.
The Turkish
government's statement, issued late on Friday, claimed the German president
didn't have "the right to attribute to the Turkish people a crime which
they have not committed."
It also
warned Germany that it had angered its large Turkish population, saying they
"will not forget and forgive President Gauck's statements."
On Friday
Germany's parliamentary speaker, Norbert Lammert, said that Germany's own
history made it even more important for it to stand up on the subject.
"We
Germans cannot lecture anyone about dealing with their past, but we can,
through our own experiences, encourage others to confront their history - even
when it hurts," he said.
Germany's
parliament is expected to vote on a motion to officially declare the killings
of Armenians as genocide before its summer break.
The draft
resolution, published online earlier in the week, was careful to point out that
Germany's role in the Holocaust during World War II was even worse than the
Turks' attack on Armenia.
More than
20 parliaments globally now recognize the event as genocide.
Commemorations
have taken place around the world to mark the centenary of the massacre.
shs/rc (dpa, AFP, AP, Reuters)
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