Azerbaijan slams US resolution on Armenian claims

ANKARA

Azerbaijan threw its support behind Turkey on Friday, criticizing a U.S. resolution that formally recognized Armenian claims of 1915 events.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry called the resolution passed by the Senate on Thursday "biased," saying it lacked legal basis.

"The adoption of the resolution ... is an attempt to falsification of historical facts and its use as a means of political pressure," Leyla Abdullayeva, the ministry's spokeswoman, said in a statement.

She said the resolution "serves only the dirty purposes of the Armenian lobby circles."

Abdullayeva accused the U.S. Senate of remaining silent on "bloody ethnic cleansing of more than one million Azerbaijanis in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan" while giving political assessments on the 1915 events.

Turkey's position on the events of 1915 is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians resulted in numerous casualties.

Turkey objects to the presentation of the incidents as "genocide" but describes the 1915 events as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.

Ankara has repeatedly proposed the creation of a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia plus international experts to examine the issue.