Lithuanian president's Armenian Genocide remarks anger Turkey
The Lithuanian Ambassador to Turkey was summoned by Ankara following Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda's statement that "Turkey carried out the genocide of Armenians", LRT reported.
However, Turkey did not lodge a formal protest.
Nausėda said "Lithuania recognises" that "Turkey is a NATO ally that carried out the genocide of Armenians" during an interview with the Lithuanian news website Delfi.lt.
The Lithuanian president said "the US Congress has recently recognised [the genocide] as well," adding rhetorically, whether one could "imagine a situation when a NATO member state would not recognise the Holocaust?"
The meeting of Ambassador Audrius Bruzga and Aylin Tashan, a representative of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, took place in the second half of November, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry told BNS.
One of the topics discussed was the "events of 1915, which part of the international community sees as Turkey's genocide of Armenians," according to the Lithuanian foreign ministry.
No diplomatic note was presented during the meeting, the ministry added.