WASHINGTON, DC – The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) this week called the attention of an influential U.S. Senate panel to how the failure of U.S. policy-makers to confront past genocides has materially contributed to an international environment which tolerates continued crimes against humanity.

“Considering… the moral and legal obligations we have undertaken as parties to the Genocide Convention, it is truly astonishing that the United States has more recently pursued a policy of complicity in Turkey’s state-sponsored denial of the Armenian Genocide and has even gone to the lengths of assisting Turkey in covering up a crime that was publicly cited by Raphael Lemkin as one of the major motivating factors in the very drafting of the Genocide Convention,” explained ANCA Government Affairs Director Kate Nahapetian in written testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law for a hearing titled “The Law of the Land: U.S. Implementation of Human Rights Treaties.”

Nahapetian continued, noting that, “Turkey’s success in silencing one of the most powerful countries in the world on one of the best documented cases of genocide emboldens other states to commit genocide and undermines the ability of the U.S. and the international community to prevent crimes against humanity. The starkest example of this consequence is Sudan’s mimicking of Turkish genocide denial tactics and the growing alliance between these two countries.”

Read the complete text of Nahapetian’s testimony.