WASHINGTON – President Biden is ready to formally declare that the massacres of Armenians in the early twentieth century were genocide, US officials said, a rare step that would ignite ties with Turkey.
Mr Biden is expected to describe as genocide the deportation, starvation and massacres of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks since 1915, officials said.
The language would come as part of an annual statement that coincides with a day of remembrance on Saturday. Officials added that no final decisions or briefings had taken place and that Mr Biden could choose to issue the symbolic statement without describing the killings as genocide, as had other presidents.
Turkey denies the killing was genocide, saying Armenians have risen up against the government. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Haberturk Television on Tuesday that a statement from Mr Biden would only affect the connections. A spokesman for the Turkish embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
Most historians recognize the Ottoman Empire’s treatment of Armenians and members of other ethnic and religious minorities from 1915 to 1923 as genocide.
Mr Biden’s presidential campaign said a month before the November elections that he would “recognize the Armenian genocide and make universal human rights a top priority for his administration, so that such a tragedy can never happen again.” .
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Wednesday that the administration would have more to say on Saturday about the issue, but said it would not provide details at this time.
In recent years, ties between the United States and Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have deteriorated due to Ankara’s acquisition of Russia’s S-400 air defense system, as well as human and civil rights issues. under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey’s role in several regional conflicts.
Armenian refugees around 1915.
Photo:
Pictures from history / The image works
Under pressure from Congress, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Turkish government entities over the acquisition of the S-400, which Pentagon officials said could be used to gather information about the F-35 stealth planes Turkey was supposed to build. buy and eliminate Ankara from participating in the US-led F-35 stealth program.
The 2019 Congress overwhelmingly passed lawful resolutions in the House and Senate, calling the 1915 actions a genocide. A presidential statement has long been a priority for the sizeable Armenian-American community, which has countered Turkey’s lobbying efforts with its own.
If Mr Biden formally uses the term “genocide”, analysts say Ankara could respond by drawing attention to the treatment of Native Americans by European settlers; organizing a diplomatic protest; or, although less likely, a US ban on the use of the country’s Incirlik air base.
Turkey could also create informal barriers to US imports, said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and chairman of Edam, a think tank in Istanbul. The answer would probably take into account the fact that many Turkish citizens share the government’s view on history, Mr Ulgen said.
“The Turkish people see this page in history as one in which tragedies have hit not only Armenians but also Turks who have faced ethnic cleansing in the Balkans,” Mr Ulgen said.
The language debate stems from the World War I effort to deport about 2 million Armenians from Turkey during the era of the Young Turkish Empire. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians have died, while half a million have left their homes. Present-day Armenia, a former Soviet state, occupies only part of the traditional Armenian homeland in the Caucasus Mountains bordering Turkey.
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Earlier, President Ronald Reagan, who began his political career among a large Armenian-American population in California, referred to the massacres as genocide in comments about the Holocaust and other atrocities. However, other presidents stopped using this terminology during their term.
Former President Donald Trump called the 1915 actions “one of the worst mass atrocities of the twentieth century,” in a statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Trump White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany once mentioned a “memorial to the Armenian genocide” during a press briefing.
Armenia’s ambassador to the United States, Varuzhan Nersesyan, told The Wall Street Journal that he hoped Biden White House would continue the genocide.
The executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America, Bryan Ardouny, said that “the US assertion of the Armenian genocide not only enhances America’s credibility in human rights issues, but also helps prevent future genocides.”
Aram Suren Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, called on Mr Biden to increase US support for Armenia, which he described as “a blocked state, a survivor of the genocide, facing ongoing trials in Ankara and Baku to complete the murder. ”
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the United States, Elin Suleymanov, said a genocide proclamation in Washington “does not help normalize between Armenia and Turkey,” including the opening of the closed border between Turkey and Armenia. “It will not be helpful in the region,” he said.
Write to William Mauldin at [email protected]
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