Turkey has defined the position of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with which he recognizes the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, as an attempt to exploit painful events of the past for political reasons. The position was published on the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turkey. In it, the case is called the "events of 1915", BTA reported.
“Netanyahu's statement regarding the events of 1915 is an attempt to exploit the painful events of the past for political reasons“, the document says.
The institution sees in the Israeli prime minister's reaction an attempt to cover up what Israel has done in Gaza.
“Netanyahu, who will be tried for his participation in the genocide against the Palestinian people, is trying to cover up the crimes he and his government committed“, Turkey's position says.
The country condemns and rejects the recognition of the Armenian genocide, defining it as incompatible with historical and legal facts.
According to Yerevan, between 1915 and 1916 Up to 1.5 million people died, amid the repression of the Ottoman authorities against the Armenian Christian minority, which they considered pro-Russian and disloyal to the Ottoman Empire. Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, does not recognize these events as genocide, estimating the number of Armenians killed at 300,000 to 500,000 and claiming that a similar number of Turks died in the unrest after many Armenians sided with Russian forces.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly stated for the first time that he recognizes the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, Israeli media reported.
He did so on journalist Patrick Bet-David's podcast on Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Bet-David asked Netanyahu why Israel was hesitant to recognize the massacre of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917 as genocide, given that the world recognizes the Holocaust against the Jews.
In response, the Israeli prime minister announced that the Knesset had recently passed a resolution recognizing the events in the Ottoman Empire as genocide. However, when the journalist insisted on his personal recognition, Netanyahu replied: “I just did it“.