In the post he shared in English on his social media account, Fahrettin Altun said pointed out that one thing that was common about the states that accused Türkiye of so-called “genocide” was that they all incited violence and sponsored terror groups against the Ottoman Empire in its last years.

Reminding that those nations planned to instill hatred among the various ethnic and religious groups within the Ottoman Empire but to no avail, Director of Communications Altun underscored that their efforts were meant to create internal divisions to bring down the empire from within.

Recollecting that those nations systematically denied the rights of their own minorities, Altun indicated that their provocations and sabotage efforts against the multiethnic and multicultural diversity in the Ottoman Empire were part of their strategy to reject the aspirations of their own minorities.

Underlining that the First World War inflicted the most pain on societies that were attacked by imperialist European powers, Altun highlighted that the unspeakable massacres and crimes committed in the Balkans during the war were important proof of this fact.

Altun continued as follows: “The events of 1915 and what transpired afterward is yet another sad episode of pain and suffering experienced by peoples in a war conducted by imperialists vying for power and territorial expansion. We do not believe pain has a color, religion, or nation. The pain of this history belongs to us and remains in our hearts. Those who repeatedly politicize our common pain are after scoring cheap and shortsighted political gains. We will not let them! Our common and honorable history with its happy as well as painful memories must not be the source of fake political crises but the basis of building our common future. As Türkiye, we have been committed to this vision and are working with Armenia to normalize our relations.”

Recalling that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had taken every possible step to recognize the painful memories in our history, Director of Communications Altun said, “He has also fought every effort to shamelessly politicize any human tragedy. We will never accept such efforts and will always look toward building peace in our region.” (ILKHA)