ANKARA (Sputnik) — Austria’s recognition of the Armenian genocide will have a negative impact on relations between Vienna and Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday in a telephone conversation with his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz.
Earlier this week, Austria’s parliament issued a declaration, calling the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman government during the World War I a “genocide.”
"The adoption of this declaration will inevitably have unfavorable impact on bilateral relations,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry quoted Cavusoglu as saying.
Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, refuses to use the word "genocide" when referring to the mass killings in World War I in Armenia by the Ottoman Empire, arguing that thousands of Turks also died when Ottoman forces battled the Russian empire over the Anatolia territories.
Following Austria’s declaration, Ankara recalled its ambassador to Vienna for consultations.
According to Yerevan estimates, about 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were killed during World War I.
Commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire will take place in Yerevan on April 24, 2015.
