Pashinyan refuses to comment on Israeli recognition of the Armenian genocide, denouncing its political use, while Turkey lashes out against the decision.

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinián, has opted this Monday not to publicly comment on the recent recognition of the Armenian genocide, attributed to the Ottoman Empire, approved by the Israeli authorities, considering that these historical events are being used “as a weapon” in the current political arena.

“We do not believe there is a need to respond because we believe that participating in its use as a weapon does not benefit the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinián stated, according to statements disseminated by the official Armenian agency Armenpress after a meeting of the Board of Directors of his party, Civil Contract.

On Sunday, the Israeli Government gave the green light to the proposal presented by its Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, to officially recognize the Armenian genocide resulting from the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1918.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” Saar stated before expressing his gratitude for the support received from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the rest of the cabinet. “As Jews, and especially as the nation-state of the Jewish people, I believe it is our moral duty to make this decision,” he declared.

The Turkish Executive reacted by harshly criticizing the measure and accused Israel of trying to “cover up its own crimes” through this “political decision,” while holding the Israeli authorities responsible for “systematically oppressing the Palestinian people before the eyes of the entire world.”

Ankara does not dispute that massacres of Armenian civilians occurred, but rejects that they fall into the category of genocide, and maintains that the deaths were not the result of a state plan for mass extermination by the Ottoman government, but rather a consequence of inter-ethnic clashes, epidemics, and famines in the turbulent context of World War I.

However, the academic community and numerous countries widely consider it the first systematic genocide of the Modern Age and the second most analyzed after the Jewish Holocaust. In parallel, Turkey and Armenia are currently undergoing a process of normalization of their bilateral relations, driven from Yerevan, which also includes the search for a peace agreement with Azerbaijan after the Armenian defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023.