On Thursday multiple lawmakers issued statements of praise for President Biden following reports that he plans to officially recognize the killing of more than 1.5 million Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago as a genocide.
The statement by Biden, expected to come on or before Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day on Saturday, April 24, 2021, which marks the 106th anniversary of the start of the years-long attacks against Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which began during World War I and lasted until 1922. Biden would be the first U.S. president to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, though President Reagan made a reference to the genocide once in 1981 when discussing the Holocaust.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who last month led a bipartisan coalition of nearly 40 lawmakers calling on Biden to officially recognize the genocide, said in a statement Thursday that he was “honored and incredibly moved” by the president’s “reported decision to end over a century of official erasure of one of the darkest events in human history.”
“After three decades of leading this fight in Congress, I am proud the U.S. government is poised to finally be able to say it without any euphemism: genocide is genocide,” Menendez added. “Plain and simple.” marks the 106th anniversary of the start of the years-long attacks against Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, which began during World War I and lasted until 1922.
Menendez added Thursday that he was “deeply grateful for and inspired by the Armenian American community’s persistence in ensuring the Armenian genocide is recognized as an irrefutable fact of history — accepted by the United States and the rest of the world.”
“Having the full U.S. government affirm the facts of the Armenian Genocide will send a strong signal that the truth and human rights, not ignorance and denial, shape our foreign policy,” the New Jersey senator added.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who was also one of the senators to sign on to last month’s letter to Biden, took to the Senate floor and expressed his satisfaction, “It’s come to my attention that President Biden intends to have the United States formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, becoming the first sitting U.S. President to do so. Great news. It’s a long time coming and a step that I have called on Presidents of both parties to take. Each year, I gather with Armenian Americans in Times Square to commemorate the annual anniversary of this atrocity, and every year, my heartbreaks for the victims of the genocide and their descendants. There are very few left but some very elderly people are sitting in the audience each year reminding us how painful and how real that genocide was.”
Senator Schumer concluded his remarks by criticizing the Turkish governments continued denialist policy, “The Turkish Government’s idea of saying there was no Genocide just defies history. I have seen the victims. I have talked to the victims. And so, this Saturday, which marks the 106th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and I am so relieved, grateful, and moved that we can finally commemorate the anniversary with the knowledge that the Government of the United States, led by Joseph Robinette Biden, has recognized the truth of the Armenian Genocide at last.”
“Armenian Americans across the country share the joy and enthusiasm expressed by Senate Majority Leader Schumer today at the reports that the White House will once and for all recognize the Armenian Genocide. We are forever grateful to Leader Schumer for his genuine friendship with Armenia and her global citizens who have tried to heal and have our story recognized for the last 106 years. We are also humbled at the leadership of Chairman Menendez for his tireless, unwavering efforts to bring the U.S. Senate, as well as our Executive Branch under President Joe Biden, to the forefront of leading nations in the world to recognize the historical truth of 1915.” stated Armenian Council of America’s Washington D.C. Representative Taniel Koushakjian.
The Armenian Council of America is committed to promote the civic and civil rights interests of the Armenian American community, and to champion the causes and concerns of the Armenian-American community within local, state, and federal governments.
