Erdogan invited to Armenian Genocide concert in Turkey

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been invited to attend a concert commemorating the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, Ermenihaber.am reports.

Dresdner Sinfoniker will perform "Aghet", a production commemorating the Armenian Genocide, in at the German Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on November 13.

Besides Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Minister of Culture Nabi Avci have also been invited to the event.

According to Turkey-based Armenian newspaper Agos, the invitation sent to Erdogan says the concert seeks to establish cooperation among artists of the three countries.

Also, the invitation said, the event is organized with the support of the German Foreign Ministry and the European Union.

The orchestra said on April 23 that Turkey attempted to pressure it and the EU to keep the term genocide out of the same concert it ended up playing on April 30 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Genocide.

The controversy then centered on texts that were sung or spoken during the show in the eastern German city of Dresden, as well as the event's programme, which used the word.

Director of the Dresdner Sinfoniker orchestra Markus Rindt said the concert matters to Germany a lot as the country "bears its own share of responsibility for the massacres."