HDP to recognize 1915 killings as genocide if it rises to power

Turkey's main Kurdish HDP party announced that it will recognize the mass killing of 1915-16 under the Ottoman rule as genocide, if it comes to power in the upcoming snap elections.

“HDP will do everything required to apologize for the people, subjected to genocide and massacres during history," Figen Yüksekdağ, the co-chair of People's Democracy Party, or HDP, said declaring her party's election statement at a huge gathering in the capital, Ankara.

Her cheering supporters burst into applauses to show their satisfaction with these remarks which put its marks into the pro-Kurdish party's manifesto.

The co-chair also pledged that HDP will build a bridge of friendship with Armenian people by lifting economic sanctions on this country, as well as improving political ties with it. “We will re-open Turkey's border with Armenia without any precondition," she promised.

In early 2015, Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtaş said that he accepted the mass killings of Anatolian Armenians during WWI as “genocide" without any hesitation.

“There were Kurds among those responsible for the then massacres, but the political willpower was the Union and Advancement, which was led by General Talat and General Enver," Demirtaş said at a televised debate on CNN-Turk in January, 2015. "If you take care of the Ottoman Empire's heritage, then you have to look after this well," he urged.

Armenia's Dashnak Party has hailed Demirtaş's remarks that recognize the mass killings of 1915-16 as genocide. Giro Manoyan, the leader of the nationalist Dashnak Party, said his party has close ties with Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP party.

“HDP recognizes the massacres as genocide. It is important for us to cooperate with this party in respect of approval of the mass killings as genocide," he told reporters in Yerevan on April 23.

The Dashnaks established themselves in 1890 in Tbilisi, the capital of today's Georgia. In the era of the Ottoman Empire, it fought to establish an Armenian self-rule in the eastern regions of Anatolia and ensure security for Armenian-dominated regions.

It was the key figure in the establishment of the democratic Republic of Armenia, following the fall of the Tsarist Russia in 1917. Many in key positions within the party escaped from Armenia after Soviet Russia ensured its influence in the region in early 1920.

The party's leaders have struggled abroad for the Armenian diaspora to protect its cultural identity, until they returned back to Armenia following the fall of the Soviet Union.

During World War I, the Ottoman rule deported hundreds of thousands of Armenians in Anatolia to present-day Syria in 1915-16. As a result of the deportation, an unknown number of people were killed in civil strife or died from starvation. Armenians living in the homeland and in the Diaspora call this event a "genocide", whereas Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

The 1915 events remain a highly sensitive issue in the history of Turkey and Armenia. In a historic move in 2014, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was then serving as prime minister, extended Turkey's condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians who had lost their lives in 1915. Although his statement was widely welcomed by Europe and Armenians living in Turkey, Yerevan has remained unsatisfied.

Countries such as France, Italy and Belgium formally recognize the 1915 killings as genocide against the Armenians. It is a crime to deny the "Armenian genocide" in some countries like Greece and Slovakia.