5 Things You Should Know About the Armenian Christian Genocide
Turkey Continues to Deny That Genocide Happened
A considerable amount of international attention was given to the genocide three years ago because it was the 100th anniversary of the genocide. Turkey's posture has remained unchanged, though one member of the Turkish Parliament introduced an "unprecedented" measure seeking to recognize the Armenian genocide and called for redress for the descendants of its survivors, EurasiaNet reported Tuesday. The bill is not expected to gain traction.
In 2015 after Pope Francis called what happened to the Armenians as the first genocide of the 20th century and said that "[c]oncealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it," the Turkish government recalled its ambassador from the Vatican.
Turkey has only acknowledged that "some" Armenians died, referring to them as war casualties, and blaming other things like disease and chaos. The nation insists that their deaths were not deliberately planned to wipe them out as a group and therefore does not constitute genocide.
"It is out of the question for there to be a stain, a shadow called 'genocide,' on Turkey," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the time.
