Turkey Recalls Envoy to Brazil over Resolution Recognizing Armenian Genocide
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Turkey's Foreign Ministry said the ambassador to Brazil has been recalled after that country's senate passed a resolution recognizing the massacres of Armenians a century ago as genocide.
The ministry said late Monday that Ambassador Huseyin Dirioz was returning to Ankara for consultations over what it termed Brazil's "distortion" of history, AP reported.
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey denies a genocide took place. It has insisted that the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
In April, Turkey recalled its ambassador to the Vatican after the pope labeled the killings as genocide.
