Turkey must deal with the ghosts of the past if it wants to become one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023, the US envoy to Turkey has said, following controversy over a French bill to criminalize denials of Armenian genocide claims, Hurriyet Daily News reports.
“Every great country has brilliant moments of which we are proud in our pasts and moments of pain,” Francis Ricciardone said.
“We think that historians need to grapple with this in an open and honest way so that you can come to a full and frank acknowledgement of what happened. We believe that you are beginning to do that,” the envoy added.
The ambassador’s statement comes amid deep Turkish-French conflict over a law penalizing the denial of the 1915 events as genocide in France; similar attention over the claims affects Turkish-U.S. ties almost every day before April 24, the day Armenians commemorate the events.
