Angry Turkey protests Czech parliament’s genocide vote

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – Turkey is protesting the Czech Parliament’s vote that recognizes the killing of Armenians a century ago as genocide.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry says in a statement it condemned the resolution “in the strongest terms.”

The vote earlier this week was proposed by a lawmaker, not by the Czech government. The Czech Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said that historians, not politicians, should deal with the issue.

Experts estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event viewed by many scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey disputes the label, says the toll has been inflated and considers those killed as victims of a civil war.