BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN
Armenians and Turks around the world wait with bated breath each year to see if the President of the United States would use in his annual April 24 statement the word Genocide to describe the mass killings of Armenians.
Armenians and Turks seem to forget that the United States has not only recognized the Armenian Genocide, but has done so repeatedly at the highest levels: The House of Representatives recognized the Armenian Genocide twice in 1975 and 1984. So did President Reagan in his Presidential Proclamation 4838, issued on April 22, 1981. Most importantly, the United States Government officially recognized the Armenian Genocide in a report filed with the International Court of Justice (World Court) in 1951.
Therefore, after all this recognition, as I have repeatedly stated in my columns, Armenians no longer need additional acknowledgments by the President of the United States or the U.S. Congress.
This year, many were curious if Pres. Trump would issue a statement at all on April 24 and whether he will use the term Armenian Genocide. After 84 members of Congress wrote a joint letter to Pres. Trump and private individuals like Mike Sarian of California contacted high level Trump administration officials urging the President to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, the White House issued a statement on April 24, declining to call it genocide.
The good news is that, given Pres. Trump’s lack of familiarity with Armenian issues, and not having made any campaign promises to the Armenian community, the Trump administration did not completely ignore the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and marked this special day with a statement, as was done by several previous presidents. Pres. Trump’s statement mentions the basic facts of the Genocide, describing the Armenian mass killings as “one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century. Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.”
