Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and the Armenian community, referring to the “pain of lives lost” during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, which he attributed to “sabotage by armed groups and epidemic diseases.”

According to the Istanbul-based newspaper Jamanak, Erdogan stated that “the sad memories of the past must not hold the present and future hostage,” RFE/RL reports.

His message also read: “Those who tried to undermine our deeply rooted and strong ties by fostering enmity through history have not succeeded to this day.”

Turkey has long pursued a policy of denying the Armenian Genocide, referring instead to a narrative of ‘shared suffering’ and avoiding acknowledgment or responsibility for the events of 1915.