system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is Armenian Genocide recognition so controversial at the political level?

While academics and historians almost universally agree that the Armenian Genocide took place, few countries around the world officially recognize it. Why is this?
gpt
Turkey denies the Armenian genocide occurred.

Turkey has historically been a very important ally to the west, controlling the strategically important access to the Black Sea, and being a more moderate liaison to the Middle East.  Armenia, on the other hand, is not of particular strategic importance.

So politically, even if the historical evidence supports an Armenian genocide, there is little upside and quite a bit of downside in harm relations with Turkey by proclaiming in occurred.

In Turkey's defense, genocides were not terribly uncommon in the 19th Century.  They just happened to have one a little later, in an era of photography and mass media.  It by no means excuses it, but it is a little unfair to single Turkey out when just decades before the US was killing off Native Americans, the Russians elimated the Circassians, and even back a little further to the the Potato Famine (UK/Ireland)  and War in the Vendée (France).