Turkey’s foreign ministry has summoned the US ambassador in Ankara to protest the decision by US President Joe Biden to mark the deportation and killing of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as “genocide”, writes AlJazeera.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal met with David Satterfield to express Ankara’s strong condemnation.

“The statement does not have legal ground in terms of international law and has hurt the Turkish people, opening a wound that’s hard to fix in our relations”, - the ministry said.

On Saturday, Biden followed through on a campaign pledge to recognise the events that began in 1915 and killed an estimated 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians as genocide.

The White House proclamation immediately prompted statements of condemnation from Turkish officials, although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is yet to address the issue.