On April 29, the Turkish ambassador to France, Ali Onaner (1), declared on French radio Europe1, that «the term ‘genocide’ is increasingly used wrongly and through », adding «Today we see an abuse of this term I know that in France you do not accept that we use the term ‘genocide’ for what happened in Algeria before independence. It is the same in Turkey.»
For him, «it is a question of respecting the purely legal definition.» And «This does not prevent Turkey from expressing sincere compassion which you can see in particular in the message of condolence sent by the President of the Republic [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] every April 24 to the representatives of the Armenian community in Turkey.»
(1) Ambassador Ali Onaner is a former promotion comrade of the National School of Administration (ENA) of the French President Emmanuel Macron (2002-2004).
Jean Eckian / Paris