Dont call it genocide

last updated 8 January 2015

Ankara, Turkey

Turkey recalled its ambassadors to France and Canada this week, in protest of their moves to recognize the slaughter of Armenians in World War I as genocide. Armenians say that 1.5 million of their people were systematically killed by Ottoman Turks; Turkey says that number is highly inflated and that Armenian deaths were just part of the war. Last week, France introduced a bill to label the massacre genocide, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada would consider doing so too. Ankara said it had recalled its ambassadors to discuss how to respond diplomatically to the “baseless allegations.” In Turkey, using the term “genocide” to refer to the massacre is against the law.