The Armenian Genocide refers to the slaughter and fatal deportation of hundreds of thousands to over a million Armenians as well as intentional and irreversible ruination of their economic and cultural life environments during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.
It is now widely acknowledged to have been the first true genocide, and Western sources sometimes point to the sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the Armenians. The event is also said to be the second-most studied case of genocide. To date twenty-one countries have officially recognized it as genocide.
While Turkey acknowledges that during World War I many Armenians died, it also states that Muslims died as well and that massacres were committed on both sides as a result of inter-ethnic violence and the wider conflict of World War I. The Turkish government also does not accept the deaths were the results of an intention from Ottoman authorities to eliminate Armenian people indiscriminately.
