Turkey slams Obama and French leaders on Armenian killings

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan (3rd R) and Armenian Apostolic Church leader, Catholicos Garegin II (3rd L), lay flowers at the ‘genocide’ monument. AFP photo

Turkey expressed “deep regret” over United States President Barrack Obama’s April 24 statement on the Armenian massacres, saying that it was “extremely problematic and distorting historical facts.”

A foreign ministry statement said that Obama “once again demonstrated a baseless approach reflecting the Armenian views regarding the dispute between Turks and Armenians on the painful part of their common history.” It cautioned that such “one-sided statements are not only misguided, but also make the normalization of Turkey and Armenia relations difficult” and called on Washington “to encourage the Armenian side, which avoids mutual historical research, to be more realistic and conciliatory.”

Ankara made a similar statement last year after Obama, heeding previous U.S. presidents, avoided the “genocide” word in his statement, while calling the killings a “great disaster” (Meds Yeghern), The foreign ministry also denounced French President Nicolas Sarkozy and presidential candidate François Hollande for attending “genocide” commemoration ceremonies in Paris, stressing that the two had “displayed another example of politically exploiting disputed historical issues.”