In Azerbaijan, discontent after Biden's recognition of the Armenian genocide
A Turkish flag alongside the Azerbaijani flag in the streets of Baku, October 14, 2020 in the midst of the Nagorno-Karabakh war with Armenia.
AFP - TOFIK BABAYEV
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
The recognition this Saturday April 24 as "
genocide
" by the American President Joe Biden of the massacre of the Armenians in 1915, arouses the anger in Azerbaijan.
The Turkish-speaking republic of the Caucasus, very close politically to Ankara, emerges victorious from a war last autumn with neighboring Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.
A territorial conflict linked both to the Soviet heritage and to more than a century of animosity between Armenians and Turks.
This genocide, committed by the Young Turks government, killed 1.2 to 1.5 million Armenians, nearly three quarters of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire at the time.
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With our correspondent in the Caucasus,
Régis Genté
There is unanimity in Azerbaijan.
Everyone, politician, intellectual, ordinary citizen, condemns the declaration of the American president.
The population feels frustrated this Sunday morning, in this dictatorial regime where the media in particular are totally under the control of the state.
A fortiori on such a memorial issue and in the context of the
"second Nagorno-Karabakh war"
, a region that the country has partly won back from neighboring Armenia.
►
To read also:
Erdogan visiting Baku to celebrate the Azerbaijani victory in Nagorno-Karabakh
Many displayed the Turkish flag on their social media pages, in solidarity with Turkey, which was instrumental in Azerbaijan's victory in Karabakh.
President Ilham Aliev spoke of a "
historical error
" about Joe Biden's statement.
►
To read also:
Joe Biden recognizes the Armenian genocide, the wrath of Turkey
"
Political
" position statement
As for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it communicated on its usual line, qualifying first as "
political
", and not moral, this position.
The ministry then denounced massacres committed in the past by Armenians.
As if they could also be qualified as genocide and as if they had been of the same magnitude as those committed by the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20th century.
►
To read also:
Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan inaugurates a "Military Trophy Park"
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Azerbaijan
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United States
Joe biden
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