April 24 is the remembrance day of the Armenian genocide, and to mark the date, a group ran a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, implying that Turks and Armenians lost a similar number of lives in 1915. “It’s like Erdogan imposing a gag rule very publicly and an American president enforcing that gag rule”.
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Hamparian, who met with White House National Security Council staff Thursday about the issue, likewise blasted Obama for “caving in to pressure from Turkey and betraying his commitment to speak honestly about the Armenian genocide”. “This, sadly, is President Obama’s legacy-silence on the Armenian Genocide, complicity in Turkey’s denials, and encouragement of Azerbaijani aggression”, continued Hamparian.
Another presidential candidate who made and broke that same promise was Hillary Clinton.
“Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century – the Armenian Meds Yeghern – when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths”, he said in a statement. The facts are undeniable. He said it was hypocritical for Obama to call every year for “a full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts” while refusing to acknowledge them himself.
The Turkish opposition – echoed by some USA diplomats, military leaders and corporate executives – has also helped block congressional Armenian genocide resolutions for years.
Turkey’s ambassador to the US regrets a statement by the American president that commemorates the anniversary of 1915 events does not stress “common suffering” amongst the Turkish and Armenian communities. The specific reference to the Armenian Genocide appears on page 25 of the ICJ Report: “The Genocide Convention resulted from the inhuman and barbarous practices which prevailed in certain countries prior to and during World War II, when entire religious, racial and national minority groups were threatened with and subjected to deliberate extermination”.
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Saying the Wall Street Journal was “complicit” in minimizing the Armenian genocide, a Los Angeles city councilman called Friday for the immediate cancellation of the city’s subscriptions to the newspaper. The practice of genocide has occurred throughout human history. 4493) that would mandate teaching about these two calamitous events, but those who would distort an inconvenient past have mobilized to prevent the Armenian Genocide from being included in the curriculum of our schools. The U.S. House of Representatives adopted legislation on the Armenian Genocide in 1975, 1984, and 1996.
