Turkey calls on US to adopt objective approach after Obama's 'Meds Yeghern' remarks

ANKARA

Turkish Foreign Ministry has urged the U.S. administration to adopt an objective and constructive approach in evaluating historical realities on the basis of a memory after U.S. President Barack Obama's “Meds Yeghern” remarks on the killings of Armenians in 1915.

"We call on the U.S. Administration to adopt an objective, prudent and constructive approach, which takes the sufferings of all sides into consideration, by evaluating the historical realities on the basis of a just memory," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It also added that the U.S. statement which encouraged those who advocate the deepening of confrontation was saddening.

U.S. President Barack Obama avoided using the word “genocide” in his remarks to commemorate the killings of Armenians on April 22, describing it as “Meds Yeghern,” an Armenian term meaning “great calamity.” 

“Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century - the Armenian Meds Yeghern - when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire,” the White House statement read.

Turkey rejects that the events of 1915 amounted to “genocide,” saying the killings should be understood in the context of World War I.