Furious at a resolution adopted by a commission in the United States House of Representatives, Turkey has recalled its ambassador from Washington. The resolution labels the persecution of the Armenian people by the Turks during the First World War a genocide.

This is an extremely sensitive subject in Turkey. While it admits that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died during the 1915 mass deportation of Armenians from eastern Anatolia - which is now part of modern Turkey - it denies they were systematically murdered. It points out that large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks were killed during the chaotic break-up of the Ottoman Empire.

However, Armenians and many historians have long called the dispersal a genocide. It is now generally accepted that 1.5 million people died in the enforced deportation to Syria and Mesopotamia.

Turkey is a member of NATO. As such it is an extremely important ally for the US in the region, in particular for the current war in Afghanistan.