Turkey slams Czech parliament resolution on 1915 Armenian killings

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Turkey on April 26 condemned a resolution adopted by the lower house of the Czech Republic’s parliament on the 1915 killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule.

“We condemn and reject in the strongest terms the resolution adopted by the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic on April 25,” the Foreign Ministry said in a written statement on its website.      
“We are also disappointed by President [Milos] Zeman’s letter of April 24, 2017 addressed to the Armenian diaspora in his country with regard to the events of 1915, as it includes serious inconsistencies,” it added.      

According to the statement, Zeman said in his letter that history should not be interpreted by politicians but instead analyzed and interpreted by historians.      

The president therefore “contradicts his own words as he makes political assessments with regard to the events of 1915,” the ministry statement said.      

“Our reaction to these political actions that openly contradict historical facts as well as the basic tenets of law has been conveyed to the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Ankara,” the statement added.
      
The adopted resolution accused the Ottoman Empire of allegedly carrying out “systematic genocide” against Armenians, as well as other Christian minorities.      

Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War I as a result of civil strife triggered in part by Armenians siding with invading Russian troops, but contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute genocide. It also says many Muslim Turks perished at that time.