Turkey has condemned the opening of a monument in Yerevan commemorating those who participated in the 1920s 'Operation Nemesis' program tasked with assassinating Ottoman officials who perpetrated the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

“We strongly condemn the opening of the Nemesis Monument in Yerevan, which is dedicated to the perpetrators of the assassinations against Ottoman political and military leaders in the early 1920s, as well as Azerbaijani officials of the period and even some Ottoman citizens of Armenian origin,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The monument was inaugurated in Yerevan’s Ring Park on April 25. Yerevan’s Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan attended the unveiling ceremony and gave a speech.

“The opening of this shameful monument glorifies a bloody act of terror that led to heinous terrorist attacks in which 31 of our diplomats and their family members were murdered,” says the Turkish ministry.

The ministry writes: “Such provocative steps, which are incompatible with the spirit of the normalization process between Turkey and Armenia, will in no way contribute to the efforts to establish lasting and sustainable peace and stability in the region, on the contrary, they will negatively affect the normalization process.”

Photo credit: Yerevan Municipality