
Earlier, media reports suggested Biden had warned his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the upcoming recognition in a telephone conversation on 23 April. Ankara has repeatedly rejected claims about involvement in a genocide of Armenians and warned the US against recognising it.
US President Joe Biden has announced that from now on, Washington recognises the actions of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century against the Armenians as a genocide, despite earlier objections from Turkey.
"Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination. We honour the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history", Biden said in a statement.
While the move is purely symbolic, it has already sparked harsh criticism from the Ottoman Empire’s successor state, Turkey. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has stated that Ankara "entirely rejects" the US declaration. He also stressed that Biden's move undermines the mutual "trust and friendship" between Turkey and the US.
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