Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan slammed Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan urged the international community to respond to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who said on April 24 that the deportation of Armenian during the time spanning the Armenian Genocide “was the most reasonable action that could have been taken.” Pashinyan called the Turkish leader’s remarks “extreme hate speech” and “justification of the murder of a nation.”

“The relocation of the Armenian gangs and their supporters, who massacred the Muslim people, including women and children, in eastern Anatolia, was the most reasonable action that could be taken in such a period,” said Erdogan, who also posted this message on his Twitter account.

“We see that those who attempt to lecture us on human rights over the Armenian issue themselves have a bloody past,” he added, accusing the French of committing genocide in Africa.

“Calling victims of the Armenian Genocide—the Ottoman Empire’s entire Armenian population, which was sent to death marches—‘Armenian gangs & their supporters,’ killing 1.5 million [people] and justifying it as a ‘most reasonable action’ is not just a new high in denialism, but justification of a nation’s murder,” said Pashinyan in a Twitter post in response to Erdogan.

“Above all, doing this on April 24 is an ultimate insult to the Armenian people and to humanity, extreme hate speech by Erdogan personally. The world must speak out,” Pashinyan added.