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Claims of genocide are ‘simply outrageous’, Turkey says

Members of the Armenian diaspora rally in front of the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington. Photo: Reuters Expand

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Members of the Armenian diaspora rally in front of the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington. Photo: Reuters

Members of the Armenian diaspora rally in front of the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington. Photo: Reuters

Members of the Armenian diaspora rally in front of the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington. Photo: Reuters

Dominic Evans and Orhan Coskun

US President Joe Biden’s declaration that massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide is “simply outrageous” and Turkey will respond over the coming months, Turkey’s presidential spokesman said yesterday.

Mr Biden broke on Saturday with decades of carefully calibrated White House comments over the 1915 killings, delighting Armenia and its diaspora but further straining ties between Washington and Ankara, both members of the Nato military alliance.

“There will be a reaction of different forms and kinds and degrees in the coming days and months,” Ibrahim Kalin, President Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman and adviser, said.

Mr Kalin did not specify whether Ankara would restrict US access to the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, which has been used to support the international coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Mr Erdogan will address the issue after a cabinet meeting today, Mr Kalin said. “At a time and place that we consider to be appropriate, we will continue to respond to this very unfortunate, unfair statement,” he said.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces in World War I, but denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute genocide. For decades, measures recognising the Armenian genocide stalled in the US Congress and most US presidents have refrained from calling it that, held back by concerns about straining relations with Turkey.

But those relations are already troubled with Washington imposing sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of Russian air-defence systems.

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