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Turkey Says Sending Back U.S. Envoy After 'Genocide' Row


Turkish Ambassador to the U.S. Namik Tan
Turkish Ambassador to the U.S. Namik Tan
Turkey says it is returning its ambassador to Washington, a month after he was recalled to protest a U.S. congressional panel's resolution labeling as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today that Ambassador Namik Tan would go back to Washington next week, before Erdogan attends a key nuclear security summit there.

Turkey's ambassador to Sweden returned to her post earlier this week after she was recalled in protest against the Swedish parliament's decision to approve a similar "genocide" resolution.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed by their Ottoman Turk rulers in 1915 in a planned campaign of extermination.

Turkey accepts that many Armenians were killed, but it rejects the term "genocide," saying the death toll has been inflated and that many Turks were also killed during a period of civil war and unrest.

compiled from agency reports

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