Turkey rebuffs Trump's statement on 1915 events

By Jeyhun Aliyev</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – Turkey Wednesday slammed the U.S. President Donald Trump over his statement on the 1915 events between Turkey and Armenia.</p> <p>&quot;We reject U.S. President Trump's statement on the 1915 events dated on April 24 2019,&quot; the Foreign Ministry said in a written statement.</p> <p>The statement, based on the &quot;subjective narrative&quot; of the Armenians, is null and void, the ministry said.</p> <p>&quot;Distortion of history by internal political opinions is never acceptable,&quot; the statement read.</p> <p>On Wednesday, Trump issued an annual commemoration of the 1915 events, again using the Armenian term “Meds Yeghern&quot; to describe the tragedy.</p> <p>Successive U.S. presidents have refrained from calling the deaths of Armenians &quot;genocide,&quot; but former President Barack Obama adopted the Armenian phrase &quot;Meds Yeghern&quot;, or &quot;Great Crime&quot;, to describe the tragedy, a practice repeated by Trump.</p> <p>&quot;We welcome the efforts of Armenians and Turks to acknowledge and reckon with their painful history,&quot; Trump said. &quot;And we stand with the Armenian people in recalling the lives lost during the Meds Yeghern and reaffirm our commitment to a more peaceful world.&quot;</p> <p>Turkey's position on the events of 1915 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.</p> <p>Turkey objects to the presentation of these incidents as &quot;genocide,&quot; describing them as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.</p> <p>Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia as well as international experts to tackle the issue.