The president will not use the term on the 100th anniversary of the massacres. Activists called Obama’s decision “a betrayal of trust” and “national disgrace.”
President Obama pauses during an April 17 news conference at the White House.
Susan Walsh / AP
Large commemorations are planned for Friday, the 100th anniversary of the massacres in which an estimated 1.5 million Armenians perished under a crack down by the Ottoman government after World War I, including through mass executions and so-called death marches through the Syrian desert.
The mass killings are considered by most to be the first genocide of the 20th century despite strong objections by modern day Turkey, which contends activists have inflated the number of people killed and the circumstances of their deaths.
But as he has avoided doing so every year since taking office, Obama has decided to avoid using the term genocide in his address commemorating the atrocities, infuriating activists who called the decision "a betrayal of trust" and "national disgrace."
As a presidential candidate, Obama called the mass killings "genocide" and supported the U.S. officially using the term when referring to the event. So when Obama took the White House, hope was high among Armenian groups that their years-long effort for official U.S. recognition was near.
However, the realities of running the Free World soon set in. Turkey spends a significant amount of resources each year lobbying other governments to reject the "genocide" label. And it's position as an important NATO ally in an unstable region of the world makes diplomatic fallout a top concern among Western allies.
When Pope Francis last week urged the international community to recognize the massacre — which occurred from 1915 to 1918 — as "the first genocide of the 20th century," Turkey reacted with vigor, recalling its ambassador in tandem with issuing strongly worded rebukes.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, center, arrives to attend an Armenian-Rite Mass celebrated by Pope Francis on the occasion of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide at the Vatican.
Gregorio Borgia / AP
Pope Francis' use of the term genocide — in which he compared the mass killings to the slaughters carried out by the Nazis and Soviets — had raised hope that Obama might follow suit.
But in a statement issued Tuesday, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said that, in a meeting with Armenian-American leaders, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes had pledged that the U.S. would instead use the 100th commemoration "to urge a full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts that we believe is in the interest of all parties."
She also noted that Obama had asked Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew to lead a delegation to Yerevan on April 24 to "stand in solidarity with the Armenian people as they commemorate this most solemn of anniversaries."
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1PdKUiY
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