Turkey ‘shares Armenian pain’ over Ottoman-era killings

Turkey shares the pain of Armenians whose parents or grandparents were killed under the Ottoman Empire during World War I, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says.

“We once again respectfully remember and share the pain of grandchildren and children of Ottoman Armenians who lost their lives during deportation in 1915,” Davutoglu says in a statement released by his office to mark the 100th anniversary of the tragedy.

Armenians consider the mass killings a genocide, a term Turkey has consistently refused to recognize.

Davutoglu makes clear once more in the statement that Turkey does not accept the word genocide to describe the killings.

“To reduce everything to a single word, to put responsibility through generalizations on the Turkish nation alone… is legally and morally problematic,” he says.

— AFP