Turkey summons U.S. ambassador over Armenian genocide recognition

Turkey's foreign ministry said it summoned the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara over President Joe Biden's recognition of the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, adding it had conveyed Turkey's "strong reaction".

Biden said on Saturday that the 1915 killings constituted genocide, a historic declaration that infuriated Turkey and further strained frayed ties between the two NATO allies.

In a statement, the ministry said deputy foreign minister Sedat Onal had told U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield that the statement had no legal basis and that Ankara "rejected it, found it unacceptable and condemned in the strongest terms". It said the statement had caused a "wound in ties that will be hard to repair".