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We have explained to French officials, on several occasions at every level and notably to the French President, that the events of 1915 constitute a legitimate subject of legal, historical and academic debate.

Nevertheless, it is understood that the French President Macron seeks to fulfil his election promise in the hope of receiving the votes of French electorate of Armenian origin disregarding the decisions of the French Constitutional Council and of the European Court of Human Rights as well as historical facts.

It is regrettable that a politician, uninformed in Ottoman history, ignores the French and European jurisprudence and takes a one-sided position with regard to a historical issue of highly sensitive nature for Turks for the sake of his personal political gains.

An objective approach is needed to grasp all aspects of the period of collapse of the Ottoman Empire, during which more than 500 thousand Muslims were slaughtered by Armenian insurgents. Turkey attaches utmost importance to shedding light on this painful period of history and its proposal to form a Joint Historical Commission is still valid.

There are no lessons to be learned by us from arrogant French politicians, devoid of basic knowledge of history, representing a country known to us by its atrocities in Anatolia by using Armenians as well during our War of Independence and by its massacres in Algeria and its responsibility in Rwandan genocide.