The Israeli government approved this Sunday (28) the recognition of the Armenian genocide, announced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a context of strong tensions with Turkey, which rejects the use of this term to refer to the massacres that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century.
“Historic decision: the Israeli government unanimously approved Minister Gideon Saar’s proposal to recognize the Armenian genocide,” says the foreign ministry’s statement.
The decision comes at a time of strong tensions between Türkiye and Israel and still needs to be approved by Parliament.
Successive Israeli governments have until now avoided officially recognizing the Armenian genocide, mainly to preserve their relations with Turkey, which was once one of the country’s closest strategic partners in the region.
“It is never too late to do the right thing (…) it is both a moral duty and a historical duty,” said Saar, quoted in the statement.
Turkey, which regularly accuses Israel of perpetrating genocide in the Gaza Strip, rejects the use of this term to describe the massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
The Turkish government responded this Sunday by classifying the recognition as a “political” decision to “cover up its own crimes”.
“The Israeli government, which systematically persecuted the Palestinian people before the eyes of the entire world and is being tried at the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide against the population of Gaza, seeks to cover up its own crimes through the political decision it adopted in relation to the events of 1915,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
This Armenian genocide — a series of massacres in which it is estimated that between 600,000 and 1.5 million people died — is recognized by the governments or parliaments of numerous countries. The first of these was Uruguay, in 1965.
It is also recognized by great powers such as the United States, France and Germany, as well as other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Chile.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza, triggered by the attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023, and has on several occasions compared Israeli leaders to Nazi leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has typically responded to Erdogan’s attacks, describing him as an “anti-Semitic dictator who commits genocide against the Kurds”.
Relations between Israel and Armenia had deteriorated when, in June 2024, the Armenian Foreign Ministry announced the recognition of the Palestinian state.
At the time, the Israeli Foreign Ministry reacted harshly, announcing that it would “summon the Armenian ambassador for a severe reprimand”, without providing further details.
