Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday slammed the recognition by the US House of Representatives of the “Armenian genocide” as “worthless” and the “biggest insult” to the Turkish people.
His televised speech came after the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned US Ambassador David Satterfield to protest two resolutions passed by the House on Tuesday: the nonbinding one to recognize the century-old mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 as genocide, and a bill to sanction senior Turkish officials and its army for Turkey’s incursion into northeastern Syria.
“From here I am addressing US public opinion and the entire world: this step which was taken is worthless and we do not recognise it,” Erdogan said.
“In our faith, genocide is banned,” he said. “We consider such an accusation to be the biggest insult to our people.”
The ministry had earlier said that Turkey rejected the genocide resolution, which passed the House by a vote of 405-11.
It was the first time in 35 years that such legislation was considered in the full House, underscoring widespread frustration in Congress with the Turkish government, from both Democrats and US President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans.
In a separate statement, the ministry said it condemned the bill to sanction senior Turkish officials and its army, which passed 403-16.
The ministry said both bills were fashioned for “domestic consumption” in the US and would undermine relations.
It said lawmakers critical of Turkey’s Syria offensive that began on Oct. 9 would be wrong to take “vengeance” through the Armenian genocide bill.
US Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat whose California district is home to a large Armenian-American population, has sought passage of such legislation for 19 years.
He urged support for the measure in an emotional House speech that referenced the Kurds.
“When we see the images of terrified Kurdish families in northern Syria, loading their possessions into cars or carts and fleeing their homes headed to nowhere except away from Turkish bombs and marauding militias, how can we say the crimes of a century ago are in the past?” he said.
“We cannot. We cannot pick and choose which crimes against humanity are convenient to speak about. We cannot cloak our support for human rights in euphemisms. We cannot be cowed into silence by a foreign power,” Schiff said.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War I, but contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.
It has lobbied against its recognition in the US for years, calling instead for a joint committee of historians to investigate the events.
The fate of both measures in the US Senate is unclear, with no vote scheduled on similar legislation.
Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed the House’s genocide vote, tweeting that it was a “bold step towards serving truth and historical #justice that also offers comfort to millions of descendants of the Armenian Genocide survivors.”
The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also issued a statement thanking US lawmakers for “their overwhelming commitment to truth, justice, humanity and solidarity, and to universal values of human rights.”
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