U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield met with Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal late on Saturday to take Ankara’s objection.
“The statement does not have legal ground in terms of international law and has hurt the Turkish people, opening a wound that’s hard to fix in our relations,” the Turkish foreign ministry said.
Earlier on Saturday, Biden followed through on a campaign promise and acknowledged the slaughter of an approximated 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians beginning in 1915 as genocide.
But Biden argued when making the campaign pledge last year that failing to call the atrocities against the Armenian people a genocide would pave the way for future mass atrocities. An estimated 2 million Armenians were deported and 1.5 million were killed in the events known as Metz Yeghern.
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“We see that pain. We affirm history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated,” Biden said in a statement, which did not add any references to Turkey.
Biden released the statement on April 24, the anniversary of the day in 1915 when Ottoman officials Armenian scholars and community leaders in Constantinople.
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Biden’s statement provoked statements of rebuke from Turkish officials. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not yet discussed the matter.
Turkey denies the use of the word “genocide,” saying both Turks and Armenians were slaughtered in the World War I-era fighting and has called for a joint history commission to review. American presidents have evaded using the word “genocide” for years.
The announcement comes as Turkish-American connections experience tension from a host of aspects. The United States has sanctioned Turkish defense officials and kicked Turkey out of a fighter jet program after the NATO member bought the Russian-made S400 defense system.
Ankara is disappointed by Washington’s backing of Syrian Kurdish fighters associated with an insurgency that Turkey has grappled with for decades. Turkey has also called for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric accused of organizing a bloody coup attempt against Erdogan’s government in 2016. Gulen lives in the United States and denies involvement.
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Erdogan and Biden spoke on the phone Friday for the first time since the 2020 election.
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Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesman to the president, wrote on Twitter Sunday: “President Erdogan opened Turkey’s national archives & called for a joint historical committee to investigate the events of 1915, to which Armenia never responded. It is a pity @POTUS has ignored, among others, this simple fact and taken an irresponsible and unprincipled position.”
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