display
Washington (AP) - Despite warnings from Turkey, US President Joe Biden recognized the massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War as genocide and thus caused displeasure in Ankara.
"The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today," said Biden in a message distributed by the White House yesterday on the commemoration day of the massacres.
During the election campaign, Biden had promised that the massacre of the Armenians would be recognized as genocide.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected Biden's statement "in the sharpest form," as the Anadolu agency reported.
In addition, Biden's statement, “who has neither legal nor moral authority to evaluate historical events, has no value”.
Biden's declaration that it "distorts historical facts" tears a deep wound that undermines mutual trust and friendship between the two countries.
Anadolu reported that the US ambassador to Ankara was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Saturday evening.
display
The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu rejected the statement "completely". You are based "only on populism," he wrote on Twitter. «We have nothing to learn from anyone about our own past. Political opportunism is the greatest betrayal of peace and justice. " Ankara had already warned the US government before Biden's declaration that the massacre would be recognized as genocide.
The spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ibrahim Kalin, also sharply condemned the statement. He recommended the US to look at its own past and present. Erdogan did not comment personally at first. Before Biden's announcement, Erdogan had written to the Armenian patriarch in Turkey, Sahag Maschalian, on Saturday that he remembered with respect the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire who had lost their lives under "difficult conditions" in the First World War. The politicization of debates by third parties is of no use.
Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan welcomed Biden's words.
"The Armenian people and all Armenians in the world received your message (...) with great enthusiasm," he said, according to the announcement.
Pashinyan spoke of "a powerful step on the path to truth and historical justice" and of "invaluable support for the descendants of the victims of the genocide".
display
During the First World War, Armenians were systematically persecuted and, among other things, sent on death marches into the Syrian desert.
Historians speak of hundreds of thousands up to 1.5 million victims.
As the successor to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey admits the deaths of 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians during the First World War and regrets the massacres.
However, it strictly rejects classification as genocide.
The US felt obliged to prevent similar atrocities from ever happening again, Biden said. Persecution survivors have been forced to find new homes and new lives all over the world. The Armenian people survived with "strength and resilience" but never forgot the tragic story. «We honor their story. We see this pain. We confirm the story. We don't do this to assign blame, but to make sure what happened never repeats itself. "
The International Auschwitz Committee welcomed the decision.
"In the memory of their own fate, Holocaust survivors have felt closely connected to the Armenian people for many years," said the executive vice-president of the committee, Christoph Heubner, on Saturday evening.
Biden's “recognition and naming of the genocide” is an important gesture for Holocaust survivors and a signal to the Turkish government to face up to its historical responsibility.
display
As a presidential candidate, Biden had already spoken of the «genocide» of the Armenians on the memorial day a year ago. Biden emphasized at the time: "Silence is complicity." Also as a candidate, Biden had also announced a tougher course against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he called an “autocrat” who would pay a price for his behavior. In an interview with the New York Times in January of last year, Biden spoke out in favor of supporting the Turkish opposition.
A few days ago, more than 100 Congressmen from both Democrats and Republicans wrote a letter calling on Biden to "clearly and directly recognize the genocide of the Armenians in their April 24 statement". They complained that US presidents had been silent for decades, while other heads of state or government would refer to "the first genocide of the 20th century" as such. According to US media reports, the then US President Ronald Reagan described the massacre of the Armenians as genocide in 1981, but none of his successors.
The US Congress had already recognized the massacre of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide in 2019.
The administration of then US President Donald Trump then emphasized that the legally non-binding resolution did not change the attitude of the US government.
Biden's predecessor Trump had spoken of "one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century", but - like other US presidents - avoided the word genocide.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210425-99-342197 / 3