Turkey gets testy with Armenian population
Erdogan is threatening to expel the Armenian population from Turkey
Photo: Flickr.com/serdar
The Turkish prime minister's threat to expel 100,000 Armenian illegal immigrants from the country in the row over recent US and Swedish rulings classing a World War I massacre as "genocide" looks set to jeopardise already faltering attempts at reconciliation with its neighbour.
"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country", Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the BBC's Turkish Service yesterday. "Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000. If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't have to keep them in my country."
His comments came after Sweden and the US both angered Ankara by issuing recent rulings classifying the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Turkish forces as genocide. The Turkish government is now not sure if the premier should accept US President Barack Obama's invitation to a conference on nuclear risks, scheduled for 12-13 April.
A cabinet minister may be sent to Washington instead in a demonstration of displeasure with the Senate's resolution. President Obama made it clear he did not agree with the resolution's content and many lawmakers say it is unlikely that the US Congress will approve it.
Turkey has warned that the “genocide” resolutions could impede the fragile reconciliation process between Turkey and Armenia.
Armenia maintains that the Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million Armenians during World War I while Ankara argues the figure was between 300,000 to 500,000. Although Ankara acknowledges that killings took place, it refuses to accept that they were part of a systematic genocide.
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