Armenian ‘genocide’ term adopted by German MPs, prompting fierce backlash from Turkey
The resolution will “seriously affect” ties between the countries, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns, as Ankara recalls its envoy to Berlin
Turkey recalled its envoy to Berlin on Thursday and threatened further measures after Germany’s parliament labelled the first world war massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide.
Berlin’s lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved a non-binding resolution on the 1915-16 killings – one MP voted against and another abstained – in a move touching a raw nerve in Turkish-European relations.
The use of the word “genocide” goes to the heart of a long-running battle for world opinion between Armenia and Turkey over the massacres committed a century ago.
First you burn the Jews in ovens and then you come and accuse the Turkish people of genocide
Armenia has led a decades-long campaign to have the bloodshed characterised as genocide, which Turkey rejects as a gross injustice. Ankara argues the killings were a collective tragedy in which equal numbers of Turks and Armenians died.
Turkey reacted with fury to the vote, recalling its ambassador to Germany for consultations and summoning Berlin’s charge d’affaires to a meeting at the foreign ministry in Ankara.
Nationalist demonstrators, some of them dressed in traditional Ottoman clothes, gathered outside the German consulate in Istanbul to vent their anger.
Many waved placards reading “the biggest lie of [the past] 100 years is Armenian genocide”, and some made the hand signal associated with the extreme right Grey Wolves movement.