“Turkish government should accept the fact that the world has accepted long ago – it was the first genocide of the 20th century,” Schennach said, adding that the mass killings of Armenians had been proven by historical facts.
Schennach said that Austria recognized its wartime crimes during the Third Reich period. The parliamentarian added that Turkey must acknowledge the Ottoman Empire’s wartime atrocities.
Yerevan says that about 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman government during the World War I.
Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide. Ankara argues that thousands of Turks also died when Ottoman forces battled the Russian empire over the Anatolia territories.
The Armenian genocide has been recognized by 24 countries, including Russia.
