Turkish Fm Warns Austrian Fm Of Negative Impacts From ‘Genocide’ Declaration

- Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has warned the condemnation of the mass killings of Anatolian Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces 100 years ago as “genocide” by Austrian lawmakers would inevitably have negative impacts on the bilateral relations between the two countries, diplomatic sources told Hürriyet Daily News.

Çavuşoğlu’s response came April 23 after a conversation with his Austrian counterpart, Sebastian Kurz, about the Austrian parliamentary declaration calling the 1915 killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks “genocide.”

The six parties in Austria’s parliament issued a joint declaration, calling the killings of 1915 a “genocide.” Turkey recalled its ambassador from Vienna for consultation over the declaration, as the 100th anniversary of the killings approached.

Turkey has accepted that Armenians were killed by Ottoman forces during World War I, but denies there was any systematic attack on civilians amounting to “genocide.”