President Biden becomes first US president to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide
By Alexi Chidbachian
The historic announcement was made Saturday, April 24 which is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
The White House released a statement saying, The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today. 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.
Breaking With Predecessors, Biden Declares Mass Killings of Armenians a Genocide
The Turkish government, as well as human rights activists and ethnic Armenians, had a muted response to the news, describing the move as largely symbolic.
A torchlight procession in Yerevan on Friday to mark the 106th anniversary of the massacres in which about 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were killed during World War I.Credit.Karen Minasyan/Agence France-Presse Getty Images
April 24, 2021Updated 2:53 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON President Biden on Saturday recognized the mass killings of Armenians more than a century ago as genocide, signaling a willingness to test an increasingly frayed relationship with Turkey, long a key regional ally and an important partner within NATO.
President Biden on Saturday formally recognized as a genocide
the killing of more than 1 million Armenians starting in 1915, a label long used by historians but resisted by U.S. presidents to avoid angering Turkey, an important ally.
The decision is a victory for Armenian diaspora communities, notably in Southern California, that have spent decades fighting for such recognition only to be repeatedly disappointed by previous presidents. It will buoy Armenia as well, with the announcement coming months after the nation lost territory to its neighbor Azerbaijan in a bloody conflict over a disputed border region.
âEach 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,â Biden said.
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden on Saturday formally recognized the systematic killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 as an act of genocide, a long-sought declaration among Armenian-Americans that could further strain U.S.-Turkey relations. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination, Biden said in a statement on Saturday, marking Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. He emphasized the need to recognize and remember such atrocities so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history.