Posted on 04/14/2015 11:11:36 AM PDT by Jan_Sobieski
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he condemned Pope Francis on Tuesday for comments that the 1915 mass killing of Armenians was genocide and warned him not to make such a statement again.
The pope became the first head of the Roman Catholic church to publicly call the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians "genocide" on Sunday, prompting a diplomatic row with Turkey, which summoned the Vatican's envoy and recalled its own.
Muslim Turkey agrees Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman soldiers that began on April 15, 1915, when Armenians lived in the empire ruled by Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide.
"We will not allow historical incidents to be taken out of their genuine context and be used as a tool to campaign against our country," Erdogan said in a speech to a business group."I condemn the pope and would like to warn him not to make similar mistakes again."
While other Turkish politicians, and now Erdogan, have lashed out at the pope, some ordinary Turks have dismissed the row as empty politics and voiced a desire to leave history be.
Erdogan's comments are likely to put a focus on whether the United States, a traditional ally of NATO-member Turkey, will eventually use the term "genocide" for the mass killings.
Unlike almost two dozen European and South American states that use the term, Washington avoids it and has warned legislators that Ankara could cut off military cooperation if they voted to adopt it...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Germany would later use the Ottoman blueprint when developing the "final solution" of the Jews. When Adolph Hitler was questioned by German leaders about how history would judge Germany for the "Final Solution", he responded, "Who, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Today, most historians call these types of events genocide: a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people. To this day however, the Turkish government does not acknowledge the enormity or scope of these events. Despite pressure from Armenians and social justice advocates throughout the world, it is still illegal in Turkey to talk about what happened to Armenians during this era.
The Armenian people have made their home in the Caucasus region of Eurasia for some 3,000 years. For some of that time, the kingdom of Armenia was an independent entity–at the beginning of the 4th century AD, for instance, it became the first nation in the world to make Christianity its official religion but for the most part, control of the region shifted from one empire to another. During the 15th century, Armenia was absorbed into the mighty Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman rulers, like most of their subjects, were Muslim. They permitted religious minorities like the Armenians to maintain some autonomy, but they also subjected Armenians, who they viewed as “infidels,” to unequal and unjust treatment. Christians had to pay higher taxes than Muslims (Jizya), for example, and they had very few political and legal rights (Dhimmi).
In spite of these obstacles, the Armenian community thrived under Ottoman rule. They tended to be better educated and wealthier than their Turkish neighbors, who in turn tended to resent their success. This resentment was compounded by suspicions that the Christian Armenians would be more loyal to Christian governments (that of the Russians, for example, who shared an unstable border with Turkey) than they were to the Ottoman caliphate.
These suspicions grew more acute as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. At the end of the 19th century, the despotic Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid II–obsessed with loyalty above all, and infuriated by the nascent Armenian campaign to win basic civil rights–declared that he would solve the “Armenian question” once and for all. “I will soon settle those Armenians,” he told a reporter in 1890. “I will give them a box on the ear which will make them…relinquish their revolutionary ambitions.”
Why dont the muzzies want to take credit for successful jihad?
“Moderate Muslim” root for the others who are going about the business of subjugating the world.
The Turkish monsters slaughtered Armenians by the 10s of thousands and crucified naked young Christian women on crosses by the miles. I Have no respect for Turkey and their continued cover-up of the Armenian Holocaust. Turkey has deserved every bad thing that has come to it.
Muslim Turkey agrees Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman soldiers that began on April 15, 1915, when Armenians lived in the empire ruled by Istanbul, but denies hundreds of thousands were killed and that this amounted to genocide.
PFL
Everyone knows it was genocide, despite the fact Erdogan wants to bury the issue!
The allies were spent from WWI, but imagine if they had demanded the reestablishment of a Christian Byzantine state at Constantinople?
Pope: Very decent man but a little too Socialistic for my taste. Erdogan: Typical Islamo Nazi wannabe... Got it... Pope 100% correct on Armenian genocide.
Imagine if Angela Merkel were denying the Holocaust under the Nazis. That’s exactly the epic monstrosity of a response that Erdogan has made. Turkey should be forced to recognize its Armenian genocide.
They don’t take credit as it would open Turkey’s coffers to litigation. The success of the Jewish suits against Germany, Austria etc. is an example of what would happen.
I condemn the insane towelhead.
I get it that it was genocide. But I wish Pope Francis would focus on the horrific unchecked genocide that’s going on in the ME and Africa today.
I was stunned that the Pope even said this. He’s usually so PC that it’s unbearable, so I have to give him credit for this.
There has already been a Turkish attempt on the life of a Pope.
Erdogan is nutty enough to proclaim himself Caliph & remosquify Hagia Sophia, so he might have planted agents in Rome as we speak.
Used to admire the secular side of Turkey but that’s disappearing.
Germany would probably object to people referring to the holocaust as an extermination of Jewish people, but it is a fact also. What would the Turkish people like us to call the extermination of the Armenian people except genocide? If they don’t want to hear it, they should not have done it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.