Turkey recently summoned the Dutch charge d’affaires to condemn the vote by lawmakers in the Netherlands to recognise as ‘genocide’ the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire
Armenia and a furious Ankara
Armenia and Turkey are at odds over whether the World War I massacres and deportations of Armenians by their Ottoman rulers should be described as genocide. Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917, and have long sought international recognition that this was genocide
Turkey rejects the term and puts the number of dead at between 3 lakh and 5 lakh. It says what happened was civil conflict and a collective tragedy. Around 20 countries and some parliaments have recognised that there was a genocide to the fury of Ankara, according to AFP
When the Ottoman empire fell
Clashes between Armenians and Turks started at the end of the 19th century as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, costing between 1 lakh and 3 lakh Armenian lives between 1895 and 1896, according to Armenian sources. Then, in October 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire
‘The enemy within’
On 24 April 1915 thousands of Armenians suspected of harbouring nationalist sentiments and being hostile to Ottoman rule were rounded up. On May 26, a special law authorised deportations “for reasons of internal security”. The Armenian population of Anatolia and Cilicia, labelled “the enemy within”, was forced into exile in the Mesopotamian desert
A large number were killed on the way or in the detention camps. Many were burned alive, drowned, poisoned or fell victim to disease, according to foreign diplomats and intelligence services at the time. The Ottoman Empire was dismantled in 1920, two years after the creation of an independent Armenian state in May 1918