Re: Armenian Genocide
Several senior Ottoman officials were put on trial in Turkey in 1919-20 in connection with the atrocities. A local governor, Mehmed Kemal, was found guilty and hanged for the mass killing of Armenians in the central Anatolian district of Yozgat. The Young Turks' top triumvirate - the "Three Pashas" - had already fled abroad. They were sentenced to death in absentia.
Historians have questioned the judicial procedures at these trials, the quality of the evidence presented and the degree to which the Turkish authorities may have wished to appease the victorious Allies.
Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay are among more than 20 countries which have formally recognised genocide against the Armenians.
The European Parliament and the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities have also done so.
The UK, US and Israel are among those that use different terminology to describe the events.
Turkey reacted angrily after Pope Francis called it "the first genocide of the 20th Century" in the run-up to the centenary commemorations.
Turkey recalled its Vatican ambassador and accused the Pope of having "discriminated about people's suffering". The Pope "overlooked atrocities that Turks and Muslims suffered in World War One and only highlighted the Christian suffering, especially that of the Armenian people", the Turkish foreign ministry said.
In 2006, Turkey condemned a French parliamentary vote which would make it a crime to deny that Armenians had suffered genocide. The bill did not become law - but Turkey suspended military ties.
In December 2011 some MPs in France's ruling centre-right party, the UMP, revived the bill, despite Turkish government outrage. It was approved by the upper house, the Senate, on 23 January 2012 but was later struck down by France's highest judicial body, the Constitutional Council.
In March 2010, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Washington after a US congressional committee narrowly approved a resolution branding the killings as "genocide". The House Foreign Affairs Committee endorsed it, despite the objections of the White House. Barack Obama's administration has called for the resolution not to be "acted upon" by the full Congress.
The killings are regarded as the seminal event of modern Armenian history, binding the diaspora together. Armenians are one of the world's most dispersed peoples.
In Turkey, public debate on the issue has been stifled.
Article 301 of the penal code, on "insulting Turkishness", has been used to prosecute prominent writers who highlight the mass killings of Armenians. Among them were Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink, who was later shot dead in January 2007. A teenage ultra-nationalist, Ogun Samast, was jailed for nearly 23 years in July 2011 for murdering Dink, a Turkish-Armenian who edited a bilingual newspaper.
The European Union has said Turkish acceptance of the Armenian genocide is not a condition for Turkey's entry into the bloc.
After decades of hostility there has been a slight thaw. Turkey and Armenia signed a deal in October 2009 to establish diplomatic relations and open their border.
But the deal is yet to be ratified by either parliament, and some in Ankara accuse Armenia of trying to alter the terms of the deal.
A complicating factor is mutual suspicion over the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Turkey backs Azerbaijan in the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory inside Azerbaijan held by ethnic Armenians since a war in the 1990s.
Do not let success go to your head and do not let failure get to your heart.
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