Erdogan made a statement similar to those forerunning Armenian Genocide

March 18, 2010 - 13:48 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey's Prime Minister made an inadmissible statement, Armenian top diplomat said.

"Unfortunately, it's not for the first time Turkish officials threaten deportation of Armenian immigrants. Similar statements forerun the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and Armenian pogroms in Sumgait in 1988," Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said during a news conference in Yerevan when responding to a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter's question.

"Such statement damage the Armenian-Turkish dialogue. We are hopeful that Ankara will take a more realistic approach and will give up the language of blackmail, a non-civilized way to resolve problems," the Minister said.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday 100 thousand illegal Armenian immigrants can be deported from the country.

"There are 170 thousand Armenians living in Turkey. 70 thousand of them are Turkish citizens. If necessary, I will tell the remaining 100 thousand to leave. I can do so because they are not Turkish citizens and I'm not obliged to keep them in my country," Erdogan said.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.

Armenian pogrom in Baku

The Armenian pogrom in Baku was part of Azerbaijani authorities' anti-Armenian program calculated to bring about the destruction of the town's Armenian population. The seven-day pogroms perpetrated by Azerbaijani SSR broke out on January 13, 1990, leaving 300 Armenians dead. The real number of victims remains unclear to date.

The Sumgait Pogrom

The Sumgait Pogrom was the Azeri-led pogrom that targeted the Armenian population living in the Azerbaijani seaside town of Sumgait in February 1988. On February 27, 1988, large mobs made up of Azeris formed into groups that went on to attack and kill Armenians in both on the streets and in their apartments; widespread looting and a general lack of concern from police officers allowed the situation to worsen. The violent acts in Sumgait were unprecedented in scope in the Soviet Union and attracted a great deal of attention from the media in the West. The massacre came in light of the Nagorno-Karabakh movement that was gaining traction in the neighbouring Armenia SSR.