The anti-Turkey decisions taken by several countries’ parliaments on the 1915 events are "null and void" for the country, international law and scientific data, Communications Director Fahrettin Altun said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a conference on the 1915 events in the capital Ankara, Altun said: "A fabricated history perception, is an insult to history and to humanity as a whole."
Altun said that World War I had a destructive effect on several regions and also on the Ottoman Empire. He added that all peoples, including Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Armenians, suffered losses during the many conflicts that the age witnessed.
He noted that Armenian gangs used the ongoing war as a pretext and attacked the Muslim community.
"Thousands of Ottoman citizens had to leave their homeland in order to escape the massacres of the Armenian gangs," Altun said, adding that the Ottoman Empire had to respond to these attacks and decided to resettle the Armenian population in southern regions to ensure their safety.
"An incident such as a genocide has never happened," Altun highlighted, indicating that the Ottoman Empire enacted the policy as a safety precaution.
Turkey objects to presenting the 1915 incidents as "genocide," and instead describes the events as a tragedy in which both Turks and Armenians suffered casualties in the heat of World War I.
Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia under the supervision of international experts to examine the issue.
The reality that Turks and Armenians lived side by side in peace for hundreds of years is ignored intentionally, Altun stated, adding that the 1915 events are being brought to the agenda with an ill-minded political agenda.
He said that many Western countries in particular are using the incident as a foreign policy instrument and a pressure element.
"Let alone this incident being an issue of a historic or scientific discussion, it has not gone beyond being a future or even livelihood for politicians and material for lobbies and election campaigns," he said.
"The events of 1915 are proof of how a historical event was disconnected from reality and used, with various distortions, to enmity against the Turkish society and state. Historical facts should not be used for the narrow interests of the political conjuncture," he said.
Altun also reminded that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has frequently called for the establishment of a historical committee to investigate the issue and said that this call is still valid.
"This call still has not found a real answer in the international arena."
Altun further added that Turkey will continue to defend realities and will not be pressured by states, lobbies or diasporas.
"Contrary to third parties who distorted the 1915 events for the sake of their political agenda, we maintain our intention to solve the problems mutually with our neighbors and to ensure peace and stability in the region, as it was in the past."
Turkey's position on the 1915 events is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties, made worse by massacres conducted by militaries and militia groups from both sides. The mass arrests of prominent Ottoman Armenian politicians, intellectuals and other community members suspected of links with separatist groups, harboring nationalist sentiments and being hostile to the Ottoman rule occurred in the then-capital city Istanbul on April 24, 1915. The date is commemorated as the beginning of later atrocities.