Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to expel thousands of illegal Armenians workers amid tensions over allegations that Armenians were victims of genocide under the Ottoman Empire.
Resolutions voted recently in the United States and Sweden to brand the World War I killings as "genocide" undermined peace efforts with Armenia, Erdogan said, according to excerpts from an interview with the BBC Turkish service published on the BBC website.
"Those people make shows with those resolutions... And they harm the Armenian people as well... And things become deadlocked," he was quoted as saying during a visit to London.
Referring to about 100,000 Armenians working illegally in Turkey that Ankara has so far tolerated, he said: "So what will I do tomorrow? If necessary, I will tell them 'come on, back to your country'... I'm not obliged to keep them in my country.
"Those actions (on genocide resolutions) unfortunately have a negative impact on our sincere attitudes," he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu held a meeting with the members of Turkish Foreign Affairs Committee where the highlights of the meeting have been the normalization of Armenian-Turkish ties and the international recognition of Armenian Genocide.
It was recommended in the discussion hall to deport those 70 000 Armenians living in Turkey illegally. But Turkish FM opposed to the statement and said: “That would a victory card in the hands of those nations acting against us. The reporters will tell stories about those deprived Armenians and form atmosphere of racism. That will put Turkey in worse conditions.”
Panorama.am recalls that Turkey has traditionally rejected the mass killings of 1,5 million Armenians carried out early in the 20th century and took the criticism of the West painfully. The Armenian Genocide has been recognized by lots of states. It was first recognized by Uruguay in 1965. Later Russia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and the US 42 states did the same. The Armenian Genocide has been recognized also by Vatican, the Council of Europe, the World Council of Churches.