Does Joe Biden risk a crisis with Turkey?
Bild: AP
If a country classifies the massacre of the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as genocide, a diplomatic crisis with Turkey is programmed. The US president appears to be playing with the idea right now.
DrAccording to media reports, US President Joe Biden wants to officially recognize the Armenian genocide in World War I as genocide this week. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Biden is expected to do so next Friday – if he doesn’t change his mind at the last minute.
Biden will be the first president of the United States to describe the actions as genocide. Such a step would accept a burden on relations with Turkey. The massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire has so far been recognized as genocide by about 30 countries. These actions were classified by the German Bundestag in June 2016, which caused a serious diplomatic crisis with Turkey. In December 2019, the US Congress also recognized the atrocities as genocide in a symbolic vote.
April 24, 1915, the anniversary of the following Saturday, marked the beginning of the massacre. It is estimated that the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire killed between 1.2 and 1.5 million Armenians. Turkey strongly opposes the use of the term genocide and speaks of a civil war in which hundreds of thousands of lives were killed on both sides.
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