The Istanbul chapter of Turkey’s Human Rights Office has viewed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan’s message of condolence to the Armenians as a “text of denial of genocide”, reports HyeTert.

The Office’s representatives held a press conference and responded to Erdogan’s statement.

“What happened to the Armenians in the territory of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was genocide,” the participants of the press conference said and informed that they will be launching a campaign called “To Put an End to Denial” ahead of the Armenian Genocide Centennial.

The Office’s representatives note that Turkey’s language has positively changed in Erdogan’s message and connect that to the fight against denial.

“Even though the language had changed this time, the text was still a text of denial,” Iren Keskin said on behalf of the Office.

In his message, Erdogan had stated that “he wishes that the souls of the Armenians whose lives were taken away due to the conditions of the early 20^th century rest in peace and expresses condolences to the grandchildren”, but in that phrase, according to Keskin, there is overt denial. Erdogan doesn’t consider the murders of the Armenians a planned and consistent massacre, but a war due to the events that were taking place in the early 20^th century, economic conditions and more.

The initiators stated that right after Erdogan’s statement, the historical commission adjunct to the government held a discussion in Van entitled “World War I and the Armenians” on Apr. 24-25.

During the conference, the participants reiterated the 100-year old thesis that the Armenians perpetrated genocide and caused a blow to the Ottoman Empire with the Russians.

“In other words, the day after the Prime Minister issued his statement, the Armenians living in Turkey were once again presented as enemies and were accused, and the Genocide was commended,” the organizers said.

http://www.tert.am