Legendary French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour touched upon Turkey’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide during an interview on CNN.

The journalist recalled that on April 24, 2015, the world famous singer visited Armenia to participate in the events commemorating the 100^th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and said the important thing for him was recognition of what happened, not whether people use the term ��?genocide’ or not.

“You are definitely right. Why shouldn’t the Turks recognize what happened? Nobody asks the Turks why they killed the Armenians. Was it because of their religion? I don’t think so. I have read the Koran to understand whether religion is the reason, but there is no such thing. Therefore, religion couldn’t have been the reason,” Aznavour said, reports “Armenpress”. When asked what being Armenian means to him, the singer mentioned that being Armenian is as important as being French, but he is of Armenian descent and never denies it.

“I am Armenian and am not going to deny it. It’s horrible. I don’t like people who hide certain things with the fear of not being accepted somewhere. If you don’t like the Armenians, then I’m going, good-bye,” Aznavour said. CNN’s journalist tried to understand what the secret of the singer’s success is, taking into consideration the fact that critics would say “he is very ugly and short and has a horrible voice” in the earliest stage of his career.

“Unfortunately for those critics who said that, I succeeded. I read a book for an hour and learn new things in different languages for another hour before going to sleep every night,” Aznavour said, adding that he is currently trying to learn Russian.