Turkey Condemns Hollande's 'Discriminating Approach' to Armenian Genocide

On Friday, Hollande said that France would never forget the tragedy of the Armenian genocide, during a commemorative ceremony in Yerevan.

ANKARA (Sputnik) – Ankara condemns French President Francois Hollande's words, in which he called the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman government during the World War I “genocide,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday.

"It was expected that Hollande would admit during the ceremony that all citizens of the Ottoman Empire, regardless of race or nationality, lived through tragedy as it was dissolved. Unfortunately, he chose to continue his discriminating approach."

The Armenian genocide refers to a series of mass killings and starvation ordered by the Ottoman government during and after World War I culminating in 1915. The atrocities claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, according to Yerevan.

Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, refuses to name the massacre a genocide, claiming that Turkish nationals were also among victims.

"Turkey categorically rejects and condemns France's unfair and biased attitude. This approach cannot be considered as positive for the 600 thousand Turks living in France," the statement read.

On Friday, the Turkish ministry also condemned similar statements of Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Barack Obama and German President Joachim Gauck.