President Biden continues to make History.
In a speech today, he officially recognized the Armenian Genocide of 1915, much to the anger of fellow NATO partner Turkey.
From Politico:
President Joe Biden on Saturday recognized the Armenian genocide, fulfilling a campaign promise and taking a step that his recent predecessors have avoided while in office.
Biden’s designation, which coincided with Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, signals the president’s desire to prioritize human rights despite potential fallout in the U.S. relationship with Turkey. It comes 106 years after the beginning of the mass deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million people.
He emphasized that this recognition is to help insure that that events like this will NEVER happen again.
“Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history that brought so many of their ancestors to our shores. We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”
Over decades, lawmakers in Congress have been willing to recognize the genocide but sitting presidents historically have not. In a statement to mark the day of remembrance last year, Biden said he was “proud” of his role in the Senate to recognize the Armenian genocide and his endorsement of 2019 resolutions in both chambers of Congress that did the same.
The United States is now part of a group of 30 countries that have recognized the Armenian genocide, according to the Armenian National Institute.
Turkey, of course, has denounced this as “spreading lies” and the Erdogan government has consistently blamed the Armenians themselves.
Members of Congress, INCLUDING President Biden, have repeatedly called for the President to recognize the genocide, but past Presidents have always danced around the issue.
Past sitting U.S. presidents have danced around the issue, not wanting to disturb relations between the NATO allies. Erdogan has been adamant in not referring to the World War I-era events as genocide, and in 2019, Erdogan spokesperson Fahrettin Altun said any such recognition would “endanger the future of [U.S.-Turkish] bilateral relations.” In 2014, the Turkish president called the events “inhumane.”
SKIP
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to recognize the Armenian genocide if elected, although his administration ultimately did not do so — a decision his ambassador to the U.N. ultimately expressed remorse for in 2018.
President Donald Trump declined to classify the Armenian genocide as such, despite both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly passing resolutions to do so in 2019. Instead, Trump called it “one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.”
The response from the Armenian Ambassador to the US:
Varuzhan Nersesyan, the Armenian ambassador to the U.S., praised Biden’s move on CNN Saturday morning, saying it will help prevent future genocides.
“This means an end to the long history of denialism. This means to me that the U.S. is being on the side of justice, of human rights, and that this means to me, in person, that justice will prevail and humanity will prevail,” Nersesyan said.
Isn’t it grand to have a President who respects Human Rights again?