Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan condemned the burning of Turkish and Azerbaijani flags by a nationalist group on Wednesday, his spokesperson said on Thursday.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, or Dashnaktsutyun, repeated its burning act during a torchlight procession in Yerevan dedicated to the remembrance of the so-called Armenian “genocide.”
Pashinyan’s spokesperson, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, quoted by the Armenian media, said that the prime minister defined the act as “irresponsible and unacceptable.”
“The burning of the flags of internationally recognized states, especially neighboring states, cannot be tolerated by the leader of the country. It is a provoking and inciting conduct,” Baghdasaryan said.
The “genocide,” as Armenia calls it, is a thorn in the bid to normalize relations between Türkiye and Armenia. Türkiye rejects Armenian discourse on the 1915 mass deaths of Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire and has repeatedly urged its neighbor to leave the matter to historians and not let it overshadow ties. Armenia pursues normalization efforts with Azerbaijan and Türkiye, a process accelerated particularly after Azerbaijan’s victory over Karabakh, a territory occupied by Armenia for years.
Armenia marks April 24 as the anniversary of the so-called genocide at commemoration events, while Türkiye only recently moved to acknowledge the mass deaths in a rare step after years of hostilities.
Türkiye’s position on the 1915 events is that the death of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with the invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties, added to by massacres from military and militia groups on both sides. The mass arrests of prominent Ottoman Armenian politicians, intellectuals and other community members suspected of links with separatist groups, harboring nationalist sentiments and being hostile to Ottoman rule, were assembled in the then-capital Istanbul on April 24, 1915, commemorated as the beginning of later campaigns. Türkiye objects to the presentation of the incidents as “genocide” but describes the 1915 events as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.
Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Türkiye and Armenia, along with international experts, to research the issue. In 2014, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expressed condolences to the descendants of Armenians who lost their lives in the events of 1915 in a landmark statement.
Türkiye’s ties with Armenia, nonexistent in the post-Soviet period, appear to depend on Yerevan’s stance on the issue. Türkiye’s staunch support for Azerbaijan in its bid to retake lands captured by Armenia further strained efforts to normalize relations between the two countries. However, as Azerbaijan and Armenia edged further toward a permanent peace between the two neighbors, Türkiye signaled it may join the normalization drive.