I. Kalin: Turkey will respond to the «outrageous» US statement on genocide

The statement of US President Joe Biden that the massacres of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire Composed by genocide, is “simply outrageous” and the Turkey will respond in various ways in the coming months, the Turkish presidency spokesman said today.

Joe Biden bypassed decades of carefully calibrated language White House for the massacres of 1915, satisfying the Armenia and its dispersion in the United States, but further exacerbating tensions in relations between Washington and Ankara, two NATO allies.

“There will be a reaction of a different form and kind and degree in the coming days and months,” said Ibrahim Kalin, the representative and adviser to the President Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview with Reuters.

Kalin did not specify whether Ankara would restrict US access to its air base Incirlik in southern Turkey, which has been used to support the international coalition fighting the Islamic State jihadists in Syria and the Iraq or other measures it may take.

Turkish officials immediately condemned Biden's statement and Kalin said Erdogan would settle the issue after a cabinet meeting on Monday. “At a time and place we deem appropriate, we will continue to respond to this very unfortunate and unfair statement,” he said.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in conflicts with Ottoman forces in World War I, but denies that the killings were systematically organised and constitute genocide.

Problematic relationships

For decades, measures to recognize the Armenian Genocide have been delayed in the American Congress and most U.S. presidents have refrained from calling it that, stymied by concerns over relations with Turkey and Ankara's intense lobbying.

But these relationships have already been disrupted. Washington has imposed sanctions on Turkey for buying Russian anti-missile systems, while Ankara is angry that the United States armed militia fighters from the Syrian Kurdish YPG (People's Protection Units) and did not issue to Turkey the Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim preacher whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.

Managing these disputes will now be even more difficult, Kalin said. “Everything we do with the United States will be affected by this very unfortunate statement,” he said.

Kalin said that US officials told Turkey that the statement does not provide a legal basis for possible claims for compensation for the killings.

However, Erdogan told the US president when they spoke by phone on Friday, in their first conversation since Biden took office three months ago, that it would be a “colossal mistake” to go ahead with his statement.

“To reduce all this to a single word and to try to imply that the Turks were involved, our Ottoman ancestors were involved in acts of genocide is simply outrageous,” Kalin said. “It is not supported by historical facts.”.