ANKARA — Turkey and Azerbaijan criticized Israel’s decision to recognize the Armenian genocide on Monday while Armenia has remained notably silent, in an apparent effort to keep Israel's move from disrupting Yerevan's fragile normalization efforts with Ankara. 

What happened: On Sunday, the Israeli government voted unanimously to recognize the mass killings and deportations of roughly 1 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I as a genocide. While many Western governments recognize the killings as genocide, Turkey rejects the label, saying the deaths took place during mass deportations under wartime conditions.

Burhanettin Duran, the Turkish presidency’s communications director, accused Israel of weaponizing history to deflect from its own conduct in Gaza, writing Monday on X, “It is sheer hypocrisy for an Israeli administration that has massacred tens of thousands of innocent civilians, including babies, women and the elderly, to dare to use historical events as a political weapon.”

Duran’s comments echoed Sunday's statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which said Israel was trying to "cover up its own actions in Gaza by targeting Turkey over the 1915 events." Ankara said those facing genocide accusations at the International Court of Justice had no standing to lecture Turkey on history.