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Turkey angered over US Senate recognition of the Armenian genocide

TURKEY condemned the US Senate recognition of the Armenian genocide today, warning that the move “poisons the climate of Turkish-American relations,” as the government continued to deny the century-old atrocities.

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Omer Celik warned: “We do not accept by any means and strongly condemn the US Senate resolution which is based on false claims on the events that took place in 1915 in the Ottoman state, and which poisons the climate of Turkish-American relations.”

He said the passing of the resolution may please “the lobby of [the] genocide industry” but it uses history as a means of the policy based on lies.

“It is of a nature that will prevent the normalisation of Turkish-Armenian relations,” he said, condemning the move as irresponsible – blaming a so-called “genocide economy” run by Armenian fanatics.

Turkey has consistently denied the events of 1915 in which between 1.5 and 1.9 million men, women and children were systematically exterminated by the Ottoman state.

It claims that the events were “a tragedy” in which both sides suffered casualties.

But evidence of the mass killing of Armenians, branded “a dangerous fifth column,” is overwhelming.

The term genocide was first used in 1933 by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in response to the atrocities perpetrated against the Armenians.

It took until 1946 for the United Nations to officially recognise the term, which was finally adopted after the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The Armenian genocide was used by Hitler as a blueprint for the Holocaust and extermination of the Jewish people. 

In a speech to nazi generals ahead of an offensive against Poland, he urged them to “kill without mercy men, women and children of the Polish race or language.

“Only in such a way will we win the lebensraum that we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”

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