7 Oct 2011

French President takes Turkey to task over Armenian deaths

10:06 pm on 7 October 2011

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has said Turkey should accept responsibility for the genocide of more than a million Armenians during the collapse of the Ottoman empire.

Speaking on a visit to Armenia, Mr Sarkozy said collective denial was unacceptable and Turkey should look its history in the face.

Turkey insists that those who died in 1915 were casualties of war, not victims of a deliberate campaign of genocide, the BBC reports.