Mahçupyan leaves post as Turkish prime ministerial adviser

Mahçupyan, the first Turkish Armenian to be a prime ministerial adviser, is no longer in the post due to legal restrictions on age, the Hürriyet daily's website, quoting Mahçupyan, said. He said he was "automatically” removed from the post when he turned 65 on March 9 but that he continues his job on an "honorary” basis.

"I am currently abroad and I continue my work [as a prime ministerial adviser]. The only difference is that I no longer get paid,” he told Hürriyet.

Mahçupyan, appointed to his post by Davutoğlu in October 2014, created a stir when he said it was impossible not to accept that Armenians were subject to genocide during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

"It is impossible not to describe what was done to the Armenians in 1915 as genocide while what happened in Bosnia and Africa is accepted as genocide,” Mahçupyan reportedly told a website, karar.com, earlier this week.

He also defended Pope Francis' characterization of the 1915 events as "the first genocide of the 20th century,” saying the Vatican has finally dispensed with a "100-year psychological burden.”

The government has criticized the pontiff after his remarks on Sunday, and Prime Minister Davutoğlu even accused him of joining an "axis of evil” formed against his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Turkey.

The controversy over history comes as Armenians prepare to mark the centennial of the alleged genocide of 1.5 million Armenians on April 24. Turkey denies genocide claims, saying both that the death toll was inflated and that the deaths were a result of civil strife in which a great number of Turks were also killed.

Turkey also lashed out at the European Parliament, which late on Wednesday passed a non-binding resolution to commemorate "the centenary of the Armenian genocide." The Turkish Foreign Ministry quickly responded to the vote, saying the resolution was an attempt to rewrite history and threatens to harm bilateral relations between the European Union and Turkey.