The Turkish ambassador in Berlin has been recalled following a vote in the German parliament. Ankara also summoned Germany’s charge d’affaires to its foreign ministry.
The overwhelming majority of German MPs believed it was correct to describe the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a “genocide”.
The events took place in 1915 and 1916 and the term genocide has been hotly rejected by Turkey ever since.
It has been estimated that some 1.5 million Armenians and members of Christian groups in the Ottoman Empire with either killed or expelled a century ago.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the decision would “seriously affect” relations between Turkey and German.
The five-page document, written by parliamentarians from the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and Green party, calls for a “commemoration of the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities in the years 1915 and 1916”. It passed with support from all the parties in parliament. In a show of hands, there was one abstention and one vote against.
Chancellor Merkel was not present for the vote on Thursday.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, tweeted: “The way to close one’s own dark pages of history is not by maligning another country’s history.”
Turkish media reported that the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) was preparing a written rebuke. In a statement, members of the Turkish parliament’s foreign relations commission said they “strongly condemn and reject this bill falsifying historical facts about 1915 events”, arguing it was “contrary to international and European case-law”.
“It is utterly unacceptable that the events, which took place under the special conditions of WWI 101 years ago and caused heartbreaking suffering for both Turks and Armenians, be introduced as ‘genocide’ based on biased, distorted and various subjective political motives,” said the statement.
At the time of the slaughter, Germany was a close ally of the Ottoman Empire.
Twenty governments, including those of France, Italy and Russia, have in the past described the mass killings of Armenians as a genocide, and Pope Francis last year referred to the killings as “the first genocide of the 20th century”.
