“Whatever decision the European parliament makes today would go in one ear and out from the other because it is not possible for Turkey to accept such a sin or crime,” Erdoğan told reporters at an Ankara airport before leaving for Kazakhstan.
“I don’t know right now what sort of decision they will make … but I barely understand why we, as the nation, as well as print and visual media, stand in defence. I personally don’t bother about a defence because we don’t carry a stain or a shadow like genocide.”
After Pope Francis used the word “genocide” at the weekend to describe the killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman empire in Turkey, Erdoğan summoned the Vatican’s ambassador in Ankara and recalled the Turkish envoy to the Holy See in a show of protest.
