Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to expel from his country some 100,000 illegal immigrants from Armenia.

The statement came after a US committee and Sweden recently approved resolutions to brand the 1915 killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Asked about the votes in an interview with the BBC Turkish service that was broadcast late Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said:

"There are currently 170,000 Armenians living in our country. Only 70,000 of them are Turkish citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000.

"If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don't have to keep them in my country.

Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian said such statements "do not contribute to the improvement of relations."

"I think it's a violation of human rights," Armenian Diaspora Minister Hranush Hakobian told RFE/RL's Armenian Service. "No one has the right to force anyone to choose a place for living. This is an absolute human rights violation.

"And secondly," Hakobian continued, "I think this is yet another statement that we are accustomed to hearing, a groundless statement. The Armenian diaspora did, does, and will continue to struggle for [publicizing] the genocide, including in the Republic of Armenia."

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