Turkey condemns recognition of Armenian Genocide by Mexican Senate, calls it “a null and void attempt which dares to rewrite history for political purposes”

ANKARA – The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the Mexican Senate’s adoption of a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, dismissing it as “a null and void attempt which dares to rewrite history for political purposes.” It added in its statement that it fully rejects and strongly denounces the “unfortunate resolution.”

On 8 February, 2023, the Mexican Senate adopted a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire and urged its External Relations Office to promote the official recognizing of the Armenian Genocide by its government.

According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lawmaking bodies should not take up the role of historian or judge.

Citing the 1948 UN Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, the Ministry states that the events of 1915 are a “subject of legitimate debate,” and that the Mexican Senate must correct this “misstep” in light of the friendship between the two countries.

Turkey’s rejection of the Mexican resolution on the events in the latter days of the Ottoman Empire, of which the Republic of Turkey is the direct successor, comes at the same time as the publication of a new book called “The Genocide of Christian Populations in the Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath (1908-1923),” edited among others by the Turkish genocide scholar Taner Akçam.

And only last week, the French Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution recognizing the Genocide of the Syriacs (Assyrians-Chaldeans-Arameans).