WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd April, 2021) More than 100 members of US Congress are urging President Joe Biden to recognize as genocide the mass killing of Armenians living under the Ottoman Empire during the early part of the last century.
On Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoglu told Haberturk news that relations between Washington and Ankara would get even worse if the Biden administration recognized the events as genocide.
"We join with the proud Armenian American community and all of those who support truth and justice in asking that you clearly and directly recognize the Armenian Genocide in your April 24 statement," the letter, signed by 107 US House lawmakers, said on Wednesday.
The lawmakers said April 24 would mark the 106th anniversary "of the first days of the Armenian Genocide, the systematic murder of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923."
The events of this period have been recognized as genocide by the governments and parliaments of over 30 countries, although Turkish officials have repeatedly opposed the use of the term.
Last April, then President Donald Trump stopped short of labeling the events as genocide, instead using the term "Mads Yegern," an Armenian phrase that means "great calamity." In response, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said Trump's statement did not mention "more than 500,000 Muslims who were massacred by Armenian rebels in the same period."
