Another year of disappointment - President Obama will not use the word “genocide”
Monday, November 30, -1Despite Obama's campaign promise in 2008 to "recognize the Armenian Genocide" as president, this year the White House has issued a statement that avoided using the term "genocide."
Though, as an administration official said, Obama will mark the centennial on April 24th, he will still avoid the word “genocide”.
U.S. President Obama will not call the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire “genocide," says an administration official.
This came as a big disappointment not only for the Armenian Americans, but for all the Armenians around the world. "President Obama's surrender to Turkey represents a national disgrace. It is, very simply, a betrayal of truth, a betrayal of trust," said Ken Hachikian, the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America.
During the last six years Armenian Americans were expecting President Obama to pronounce the word “genocide” which would serve as recognition of the 1915 events. Yet nothing has happened so far. Official statements try to show compassion and commemoration of the victims of the Armenian Genocide without calling it an actual “genocide”, which works in favor of not losing Turkey as a key partner country.
California Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic leader of the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the decision to avoid the word “genocide”.
"How long must the victims and their families wait before our nation has the courage to confront Turkey with the truth about the murderous past of the Ottoman Empire?" Schiff wrote in a statement.
On the contrary to this, Pope Francis used the word "genocide" to refer to the mass killings of Armenian people in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire.
ArmenianBD.com