Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that Turks did not commit genocide against Armenians, indicating that the Soviet Union invented this claim to exacerbate relations between Turkey and Armenia.
Pashinyan made this statement regarding his position on the events of 1915 that occurred during the Ottoman Empire in a closed-door meeting, as reported by Turkish media on Saturday, May 18, 2024.
According to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Şafak, Pashinyan said, “With the hardening of relations between Moscow and Ankara since 1946, Russia, or more precisely, the Soviet Union, began using the discourse of the Armenian genocide. We had no choice but to accept it or not. We were told what to say, and we stood by it. Now we need to sit down and reconsider all these events.”
The Armenian Prime Minister further added, according to the newspaper, that “the Russians continued to claim the Armenian genocide with the deterioration of relations between Russia and Turkey and the establishment of NATO,” indicating that “the Armenians were only victims of geopolitical conspiracies and false promises.”
Pashinyan continued, “We must now recognize that despite all the massacres suffered by the Turks, it is very difficult to claim genocide.” He also said, “The Soviet Union wrote this scenario, and we played it.”
The newspaper did not mention the source from which it obtained the information, nor did it indicate the date of the closed meeting.
During World War I, specifically in 1915, the Ottoman Empire was engaged in a war, and historically, it is established that the Armenian subjects of this state took various measures against their own state and supported the Russians in their war against it, according to Anadolu Agency.
According to the agency, Armenians formed armed groups, “gangs,” that historically committed documented massacres against the inhabitants of the regions under the authority of the Ottoman state, which resorted to the decision to deport members of these gangs to prevent larger massacres resulting from an anticipated civil war between the Armenians who aligned with Russia and the inhabitants of the Ottoman state, including Muslims and others who sided with their state.
It is worth noting that Turkey rejects repeated Western accusations of genocide and calls for objective research into the events of 1915 based on specialized researchers, documents, and archives.
