Party Leader: Turkey-U.S. Ties at Historic Crossroads

ANKARA (KI) – The leader of Turkey’s right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, on Tuesday called on the government to put the Russian-made S-400 air defense systems on combat duty in response to U.S. President Joe Biden’s official recognition of the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as ‘genocide’.
"According to Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Biden committed a crime of inciting hatred. In response, our first task should be to activate the S-400 and demand a refund for F-35 [U.S. fighters]. For us, relations with the United States are now at a historic crossroads”, Bahceli said while speaking in parliament.
The MHP is in alliance with the ruling Justice and Development Party.
On 24 April the Armenian Remembrance Day, Biden said that "the American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today”.
Ankara, which denies committing the genocide, condemned the designation and called on Biden to reverse it for the sake of promoting the peaceful coexistence of peoples in the region.
On Monday, protesters gathered outside Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, where an American contingent is housed, to demand the authorities close the military facility and expel the troops in response to the U.S. president’s decision to recognize the Armenian genocide last weekend.
The protest was organized by a local wing of the Youth Union of Turkey (TGB), who call Joe Biden’s recognition of the genocide "illegal and legally void”. The demonstrators were carrying Turkish flags and banners saying "exit NATO – the enemy of Ataturk”, "Close Incirlik for the U.S. in response to lies about genocide”, and "No to NATO. This is our land!”
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Biden to reverse the decision.
"The U.S. president has made baseless, unjust and untrue remarks about the sad events that took place in our geography over a century ago,” Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting on Monday.
"I hope the U.S. president will turn back from this wrong step as soon as possible,” he added.
Erdogan stressed that the move would hinder ties, advising the United States to "look in the mirror.”
"If you say genocide, then you need to look at yourselves in the mirror and make an evaluation. The Native Americans, I don’t even need to mention them, what happened is clear,” he said, in reference to the treatment of indigenous people by European settlers at the end of the 15th century as they colonized North America.