Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday denounced US President Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide as “groundless” and harmful to bilateral ties, French news agency AFP reported.
Erdogan had issued a carefully-worded statement moments before Biden made his landmark announcement on Saturday at a ceremony commemorating the tragic 1915-17 events.
But Erdogan did not hold back his anger in a televised address that he also used to point out the US history of slavery and persecution of Native Americans.
“The US president has made comments that are groundless and unfair,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.
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.
Erdogan further added that Biden needed “to look in the mirror” when calling the century-old events a genocide.
“We can also talk about what happened to Native Americans, Blacks and in Vietnam,” Erdogan said.
“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.”
Biden’s statement came at a time when Ankara and Washington have been struggling to repair ties, strained when Turkey bought S-400 missile defense systems from Russia, resulting in US sanctions, policy differences in Syria and legal matters.
Erdogan said he expected to “open the door for a new period” in ties and discuss all disputes with Biden at the NATO summit in June, but warned that ties would deteriorate further unless the allies could compartmentalize issues.
“We now need to put aside our disagreements and look at what steps we can take from now on, otherwise we will have no choice but to do what is required by the level our ties fell to on April 24,” he said.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
