Relations with Washington have become strained in recent weeks following a US congressional committee vote that described the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the first World War as Genocide. Ankara recalled its ambassador in protest.
Abdullah Gul questions the motives of those who voted in favour of the resolution: “More than anything else this is being disrespectful to history. This decision was not taken by historians but rather by a group of people who have been under the influence of a group of lobbyists and decided on the matter with these motivations.”
“What we are saying is ..let the historians come together and decide, with all the historical documents . . . Let them judge this and we will accept that judgment.” The controversy continued last week after prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to the BBC, threatening to deport Armenian migrants.
Gul insists Erdogan’s comments were “wrongly interpreted” by the media. “He did not want to say that we will be expelling those people but he wanted to underline the fact that we do not have any hostility or grudge. He tried to draw attention to the fact that, even though there are so many illegal workers in Turkey, if there had been a policy of expelling them we would have done it many years ago,” The Irish Times cited Abdullah Gul as saying.
