Turkey condemns Luxembourg over genocide bid, withdraws envoy

ANKARA

Turkish Ambassador to Luxembourg Levent Şahinkaya has been withdrawn over Luxembourg's recognition of the mass killings of Armenians during the World War I as genocide.



“We condemn and strongly refute the decision taken by the Luxembourgish parliament by distorting historical facts and law,” read a Foreign Ministry statement issued on May 7, a day after the Luxembourg parliament adopted the resolution. A number of countries, including Austria, the Vatican and Russia, have recently described the events of 1915 as genocide, on the centennial of the mass killings of Armenians.



The Foreign Ministry recalled Turkish Ambassador to Luxembourg Levent Şahinkaya for consultation and summoned Luxembourg’s ambassador to Turkey, Arlette Conzemius, to express Turkey’s disturbance with the resolution.



Turkey has already withdrawn ambassadors from Austria and the Vatican but kept its envoy to Russia, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin using the word genocide and the Russian parliament adopting a likewise resolution on the 1915 events.



Turkey has strongly condemned Luxembourg for recognizing the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide and has pulled back its ambassador in protest against the European country.