Joe Biden will hear directly from Turkish President Recep Erdogan how his recent statement on the Armenian genocide ‘disturbed and upset us’ during their one-on-one meeting Monday, the NATO ally said, the Daily Mail reports.
Erdogan is set to meet with Biden in a key bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels. It will be their first sit-down since Biden’s official White House statement on the subject infuriated the Erdogan government.
‘An ally country taking such a stance on an issue that has nothing to do with NATO, the issue of Armenians, has disturbed and upset us. It is not possible to go on without reminding (Biden of) this,’ Erdogan said in comments before traveling to the summit.
He also plans to raise U.S. removal of Turkey from an F-35 fighter jet program amid security concerns over its purchase of Russian-made air defenses.
After years of debate in Washington, the White House in April released a statement on the historical event that resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million.
‘Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,’ Biden said in the official White House statement.
‘And we remember so that we remain ever vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,’ he said.
