For decades, Armenia and Turkey have been at odds over whether the World War I killings and deportations – which Armenia says left 1.5 million dead – should be described as genocide.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed but denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.
Macron’s announcement in February drew an angry response from Ankara, with a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declaring: “No one can sully our history.”
Earlier this month, Turkey also chastised the Italian parliament for approving a motion to officially recognise the killings as genocide.
Armenians commemorate the massacres on April 24 – the day in 1915 when thousands of Armenian intellectuals suspected of harbouring nationalist sentiment and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up.
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Direct link to this article: https://www.armenianclub.com/2019/04/25/france-marks-first-national-commemoration-of-armenian-genocide/