Burhan Ozbilici
Erdogan said on Monday in Ankara that Biden made “unfounded, unjustified and untruthful” statements about the “painful events” during the First World War more than a century ago. They had no legal and historical basis and would have saddened the Turkish people.
Erdogan accused the US of yielding to pressure from Armenian and anti-Turkish interest groups. But that does not change the “destructive” impact of the statements on Turkish-American relations. Erdogan said he hoped the US would reverse the wrong step immediately.
In a message distributed by the White House on the commemoration of the massacres on Saturday, Biden said, “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today.” The Turkish Foreign Ministry and numerous high-ranking politicians then strongly condemned Biden’s recognition of the genocide. Erdogan himself had initially not commented.
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. Turkey, as the successor to the Ottoman Empire, 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.