ArmInfo. "Armenians have never been subjected to genocide in our country". Turkish President Recep Erdogan said this in an interview with Turkish media commenting on the statement of French President Emmanuel Macron about declaring the Armenian Genocide Day in France on April 24, Internet portal ermenihaber reports.
Against this background, the Turkish leader accused France "of carrying out massacres in a number of African countries in the 20th century, and Macron personally advised him to study the history better". "There was no genocide in our history. Be careful in using the so-called expression of the Armenian Genocide. First read the history of this issue. The Armenians in our country have never been subjected to genocide, and today about 100 thousand Armenians live in Turkey, some of whom are citizens of Turkey. They live in our country and will continue to live here. We could send those Armenians who do not have Turkish citizenship to Armenia, but we did not do that, "Erdogan said.
Emmanuel Macron declared the April 24 the Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide Victims in France. Macron at the annual dinner of the Coordinating Council of Armenian organizations, in particular, stressed that France was one of the first countries to condemn the "bloody hunt for Armenians in Ottoman Turkey". " France is, first and foremost, the country that knows how to look history in the face, which was among the first to denounce the killing of the Armenian people, which in 1915 named genocide for what it was, which in 2001 after a long struggle recognized it in law".