Armenians in the Ottoman Empire

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sent a message on April 24 to the patriarch of the Armenians of Turkey, Sahak Mashalyan, and commemorated the Armenians died during the First World War.

"I commemorate the Ottoman Armenians we lost in the war. Let's build the future instead of magnifying the suffering," Erdoğan said in his message.

A Turkish opposition leader on April 11 slammed France for trying to pass judgment on the 1915 events between the Ottoman Empire and Armenians.       

The expected vote on recognizing the killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as a "genocide" was removed from the Knesset's agenda for the week as of May 29, Israeli media has reported. 

Turkish Foreign Ministry on Feb. 17 summoned the Dutch charge d'affaires over reports that a Dutch politician was expected to submit a motion to the parliament recognizing the killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as “genocide.”

A Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker was temporarily suspended from the Turkish parliament on Jan. 13 for using the word "genocide" in reference to the World War I mass killings of Ottoman Armenians in 1915, during heated discussions on changes to the constitution.

President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has released a statement to mark the annual commemoration of the killing of Armenians in 1915, expressing his condolences to the children and grandchildren of the Ottoman Armenians who passed away during this time. 

Over a century on, the scenes described by Zabel Yessayan in the aftermath of the 1909 massacres of Ottoman Armenians in Adana still resonate grimly. In the political tumult in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, tens of thousands of local Armenians were killed in the first months of 1909, and Yessayan traveled down to Adana with a delegation from Istanbul to inspect the aftermath.

'In the Ruins: The 1909 Massacres of Armenians in Adana' by Zabel Yessayan (AIWA, $20, 262 pages)

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has recognized on the behalf of the Belgian government the killing of Ottoman Armenians in eastern Anatolia from 1915 as ?genocide,? Belgian media reported on June 18.

According to a recent survey of Gallup International, 61 % of Bulgarians have not heard of an Armenian genocide having taken place in the Ottoman Empire, while 39 % are familiar with the event.

This amounts to around two million Bulgarian adult citizens currently residing in the country, who are familiar with the issue.