Biden Recognizes WWI-Era Killings Of Armenians As Genocide
According to RFE/RL, U.S. President Joe Biden has formally recognized the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide, in a declaration that has infuriated Turkey.
“Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring," Biden said in an April 24 statement that was released on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
“We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” Biden added.
With the formal acknowledgment, Biden followed on his campaign promise that if elected he would take the largely symbolic step that marked a break from his predecessors.
An unnamed U.S. official said the move was not meant to place blame on modern-day Turkey.
But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu immediately criticized Biden's statement.
"Words cannot change history or rewrite it," Cavusoglu said on Twitter. "We will not be given lessons on our history from anyone. Political opportunism is the biggest betrayal of peace and justice. We completely reject this statement that is based on populism. #1915Events."
"This statement of the U.S., which distorts the historical facts, will never be accepted in the conscience of the Turkish people, and will open a deep wound that undermines our mutual trust and friendship," Turkey's Foreign Ministry said separately, adding it rejected and denounced the statement "in the strongest terms."
Minutes before Biden’s announcement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a message to the Armenian community and patriarch of the Armenian church calling for not allowing “the culture of coexistence of Turks and Armenians...to be forgotten." He said the issue has been “politicized by third parties and turned into a tool of intervention against our country.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in a post on Facebook thanked Biden for "the powerful step towards justice and invaluable support for the descendants of the Armenian genocide victims."
During and immediately after World War I, Ottoman Turks killed or deported as many as 1.5 million Armenians -- a Christian minority in the predominately Muslim empire. Many historians and some other nations, including France and Germany, consider the killings genocide.
