Various countries around the world have designated the event the 'worlds first modern genocide' i.e. an attempt to wipe out a peoples, which Turkey has denied on the grounds that there would have been Armenians still living in Russia and Persia so therefore it can't be classed as an attempt to wipe out the Armenians ..... but by that argument the *Nazis killing of millions of Jews could not be said to be a genocide because there would have been Jews alive in Russia, Britain and the US, in other words the Turks argument doesn't stand up.
And this week two more, Sweden and the US, have started down that road as well. In Sweden the parliament voted narrowly to describe as genocide the killing of Armenians in World War I. The Turkish government condemned the resolution, saying it was "based upon major errors and without foundation" and they have withdrawn their ambassador from Sweden. Oddly the Swedish government supports Turkeys accession to the EU, so described its own parliaments vote as "a mistake".
Last week in the US a Congressional panel's resolution described as genocide the killings of Armenians in World War I. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country had been accused of a crime it did not commit, adding the resolution would harm Turkish-US relations.
Needless to say, the UK will never condemn the killings and certainly never describe them as 'genocide' even though there is a campaign to get parliament to do so.
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| Murdered Armenians |
Of this photo, the United States ambassador wrote "Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces, in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms—massacre, starvation, exhaustion—destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation."
The result was this ......
*Like many Muslim states the Turks are somewhat ambivalent about Hitlers views.
