Germany made historic mistake: Turkish PM

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım warned Germany that it had made a historic mistake by voting on a resolution on 1915 events accepting them as a genocide.

“Those who voted for this decision have signed a historic lie," Yıldırım said in a joint press conference with Azerbaijan's President İlhan Aliyev in Baku.

Yıldırım is paying his first official visit to Azerbaijan since being appointed as Prime Minister last month.

“We believe that history should be left to historians," Yıldırm said.

Azerbaijan's president Aliyev condemned the German parliament decision, describing is as a big mistake. “We don't take it seriously. This was a historic mistake. We are always with Turkey. We only can be strong along with Turkey," Aliyev said.

German Parliament on Thursday voted in favor of a resolution calling the mass Armenian deportation in 1915 a “genocide." Turkey strongly condemned the decision, saying it would damage relations between Ankara and Berlin.

“Turkey will certainly give the necessary response to Germany," Yıldırm said in an earlier statement.

“We will respond to Germany after consultations on the resolution with our envoy. The Turkish nation will never accept this move," Yıldırım told reporters at Esenboğa airport before heading for Azerbaijan.

On Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry called the vote “an example of ignorance and disrespect."

In a statement posted to its official site, the Ministry has described Germany's move as an attempt to politicize history and try to impose the self-created Armenian narrative as indisputable fact. “There is nothing that Turkey will learn from the parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany," the Ministry said.