Israel's president Reuven Rivlin has decided not to renew his signature on a petition calling on the Israeli government to officially recognise the killing of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide, reports the Times of Israel.
According to Israel’s Channel 10 News anonymous Foreign Ministry officials welcomed the president’s “statesmanship,” with the move apparently made in light of the country’s strained relationship with Turkey.
The Turkish government has consistently denied the 1915 killings were genocide. Israel has had a frosty relationship with Turkey, with diplomatic ties frozen after the 2010 killing of nine Turkish citizens by Israeli security forces, aboard an aid ship heading to Gaza.
Rivlin was previously an outspoken advocate for the recognition of the killings as genocide, having previously told Knesset members “I’m aware of the sensitivity, but I’m not blaming modern-day Turkey.”
He had previously stated that Israel must find a way to “fulfill its moral obligation of remembering wrongs done to others.”
“It’s unthinkable that the Knesset ignore this tragedy,” Rivlin had said. “We demand that people don’t deny the Holocaust, and we can’t ignore the tragedy of another nation.”