The Turkish Foreign Ministry over the weekend warned Israel of "consequences" if it were to recognize the mass murders of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government in 1915 as genocide.
Relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have recently reached a new low after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of being a "terrorist state" over its handling of weeks of Hamas-orchestrated riots on the Israel-Gaza Strip border, in which some 120 protesters were killed, more than half of them Hamas operatives.
In early May Ankara recalled its ambassador to Israel and expelled Israeli Ambassador to Turkey Eitan Naveh and Israeli Consul General in Istanbul Yossi Levi Sfari. Israel responded in kind and ordered the Turkish consul in Jerusalem, Husnu Gurcan Turkoglu, who is responsible for Turkey's relations with the Palestinians, to leave the country.
Last week, the Knesset approved a motion by Meretz Chairwoman Tamar Zandberg to hold a plenary debate on "recognizing the Armenian genocide."
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy warned Friday that "Israel will first and foremost harm itself by putting the events of 1915 on the same level as the Holocaust.
"Such an attempt by Israel is disrespect to members of Ottoman religious and ethnic groups who lost their lives in World War I. Jews were among them," Aksoy was quoted as saying by the Turkish Daily Hurriyet.
"The events of 1915 are not a political issue but a historical and legal issue that should be debated by experts," he said, without elaborating.
On Saturday, Erdogan called on Turks to convert foreign currency into lira in an effort to shore up the ailing Turkish lira, which has lost some 20% of its value against the dollar since the beginning of the year.
Ankara has repeatedly said the lira's fall was a "conspiracy" by unnamed foreign powers to weaken Turkey.
"If the financial sector plays such games to work against our investors and entrepreneurs, know that you will pay a steep price," Erdogan said.
