Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced United States President Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide as ‘groundless’ and harmful to bilateral ties.
Biden’s historic declaration on Saturday reportedly angered the US’s NATO ally Turkey, which has said the announcement had opened a ‘deep wound’ in relations that have already been strained over a host of issues.
In a televised address on Monday, Erdogan said “the wrong step” would hinder ties and said Turkey still sought to establish ‘good neighbourly’ ties with Armenia.
“The US president has made comments that are groundless and unfair,” Erdogan said.
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‘We believe that these comments were included in the declaration following pressure from radical Armenian groups and anti-Turkish circles. But this situation does not reduce the destructive impact of these comments.’
The Armenians – supported by historians and scholars – say 1.5 million of their people died in a “genocide” committed under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Ankara accepts that both Armenians and Turks died in huge numbers as Ottoman forces fought tsarist Russia.
But Turkey vehemently denies a deliberate policy of genocide and notes that the term had not been legally defined at the time.
Biden tried to temper the expected Turkish anger by calling Erdogan for the first time since taking office in January.
The two leaders agreed in the Friday phone call to meet on the sidelines of a NATO summit in June.
But Erdogan said on Monday that Biden needed “to look in the mirror” when calling the century-old events a genocide.
‘The Native Americans, I don’t even need to mention them, what happened is clear,’ he said, in reference to the treatment of Native Americans by European settlers.
‘While all these truths are out there, you cannot pin the genocide accusation on the Turkish people.’
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
