Members of the Turkish community in Washington, D.C. staged a counter-protest Monday against Armenian demonstrators who had gathered in front of the Turkish Embassy on the anniversary of the 1915 events.
Every year on April 24, Armenian groups in the U.S. organize provocative marches and demonstrations in front of the Turkish Embassy and the Turkish ambassador’s residence in support of so-called Armenian claims surrounding the events.
The Armenian protestors marched in front of the Turkish Embassy and the residence of the Turkish ambassador as well as the Azerbaijani Embassy carrying banners and chanting slogans against Türkiye and Azerbaijan.
Joined by Azerbaijani and Ahiska Turks, the members of the Turkish community carried Turkish and Azerbaijani flags and protested against the Armenian group.
The Turkish demonstrators also demanded that Armenian authorities open their archives to historians to clarify the claims surrounding the events, with some banners reading "Turkish and Armenian children need us to be adults."
Türkiye's position on the events of 1915 is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with the invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. 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 Ottoman rule were assembled in the then-capital Istanbul on April 24, 1915, commemorated as the beginning of later campaigns. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties.
Türkiye objects to the presentation of the incidents as "genocide," describing them as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.
Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Türkiye and Armenia as well as international experts to tackle the issue.
In 2014, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed condolences to the descendants of Armenians who lost their lives in the events of 1915 in a landmark statement.
Separately, the Foreign Ministry on Monday also rejected statements made by government officials of some countries, saying that Ankara considers them "null and void," and condemned in the strongest terms those "who persist with this mistake."
"The unfortunate statements that are incompatible with historical facts and international law relating to the events of 1915 are futile efforts aimed at rewriting history for political motives," the ministry said in a statement, adding Türkiye does not need to be lectured about its own history by anyone.
"The 1915 events cannot be defined according to politicians' personal agendas and their domestic political considerations," it said. "Such an approach can only lead to distortion of history. Those who insist on this biased approach will go down in history as worthless opportunist politicians."