President Joe Biden on Saturday became the first US president to officially recognize the organized massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as a genocide, risking a potential fracture with Turkey and doing what no other President before him has formally done.
In a statement released by the White House marking the 106th anniversary of the massacre’s start, Biden wrote, “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.”
“Today, as we mourn what was lost, let us also turn our eyes to the future — toward the world that we wish to build for our children. A world unstained by the daily evils of bigotry and intolerance, where human rights are respected, and where all people are able to pursue their lives in dignity and security,” Biden said. “Let us renew our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world. And let us pursue healing and reconciliation for all the people of the world.”
The move fulfills Biden’s campaign pledge to finally use the word genocide to describe the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians in what is now Turkey more than a century ago.
For decades, though, Presidents before him have stopped short of that— and conspicuously so— for fear of angering Turkey. Presidents have campaigned by declaring it a genocide and pledged to recognize it as such, but then failed to follow through.
President Ronald Reagan tangentially referred to the “genocide of the Armenians” in an April 22, 1981, statement commemorating the liberation of the Nazi death camps.
George W. Bush wrote a letter during the 2000 campaign in which he said he would recognize the genocide, but then backed away from it as the United States once again became entangled in the Middle East and Turkey became important to the war effort in Iraq. By 2007, Bush urged Congress to reject a resolution recognizing the genocide.
Barack Obama too said during his 2008 campaign that he would recognize the genocide, but his administration never did so in his eight years.
The Trump Administration, too, not only failed to recognize the events in the early 1900s as a genocide, but pushed back on a congressional attempt to recognize the mass killings as a genocide in 2019.
Even when legislation passed overwhelmingly with huge bipartisan support, the State Department declared that it didn’t reflect the official position of the administration.
The complete White House Statement is here.
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1 comment
Bravo to President Biden for taking this brave step to declare these Turkish atrocities a genocide. No President before him, of any Party, took this step despite the urging of communities and other political leaders. It’s time that we step up to the morals and values we claim to be our foundation, call a spade a spade. We need to stop looking the other way and choosing to condemn those fascists, dictators, and atrocities that are not in our interests. We can and will survive with or without our quasi-Turkish ally. Germany has acknowledged and apologized for the Nazi genocide. Turkey is still in denial. Perhaps the difference is that the Turkish state of mind has not changed. Pope Francis also recognized the Turkish genocide 5 years ago.
President Biden gave a beautiful speech on the 200th anniversary of Greek Independence. He gave wonderful praise of the US Greek diaspora as well heartwarming praise for the Greek Orthodox Church of the USA as well as the Patriarch in Constantinople.
This recognition of the Armenian genocide will also draw attention to, and credibility to the atrocities of Smyrna. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 did well to protect the Turks and Mosques in Greece but little for the Greeks in Turkey. Thanks to Gregory Pappas and this post, I was able to learn of the San Francisco Greek Film Festival and stream for free an emotional, and heart wrenching Greek Documentary titled “My UnLost Homeland”. It was about the Turkish pogrom in 1955. I was ignorant of this event which took place in my lifetime. It was executed with the same tactics used by the Nazis. Greek homes and businesses were marked with red paint. 50,000 rioters were egged-on by the government’s conspiracy theory that Greeks were the root of their problems and that Cypriot Greeks were planning an extermination of Turkish Cypriots. The results were the destruction of over 4,000 Greek businesses, 1,000 Greek homes, Greek hotels, pharmacies, 23 schools, and 73 Greek Orthodox churches destroyed. Where were western democracies to condemn and take action against our so-called ally?
Where is this in our US history books? Hopefully, the acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide will bring more of these Turkish atrocities into the forefront.
Turkey is not a friend of Greeks and no friend of American democratic values. President Biden did well, and I for one, am very proud and grateful.