Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
April 26 2005

Bush shatters Armenians’ `genocide’ hopes

Baku, April 25, AssA-Irada

US President George Bush on Sunday expressed condolences to Armenians
living in the United States and other world countries over the day
they mark as `persecution and mass killings of up to 1.5 million
Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire’.
Bush pointed out the importance of the future and not past, called on
the Armenian government to develop freedoms in the country.
With regard to the Upper Garabagh conflict, the US president said `we
support a peaceful conflict resolution’.
Bush welcomed the initiatives of Turkey and Armenia in conducting
research on the historic developments of the 20th century. He
approved of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal to
establish the Turkish-Armenian joint commission, voicing a hope that
this will facilitate solving the problem.
Thus, Armenians’ hopes were shattered again. On the same day, the
National Armenian Committee on the US criticised Bush’s statement.
`The statement which did not term these historic developments as
genocide shows that the US President is participating in the
disgraceful campaign denying the crimes committed against humanity,
pursued the Turkish government’, its executive director Aram
Khamparian said.
Following active efforts of the Armenian lobby, several members of
the US Senate and House of Representatives sent a letter to President
Bush calling on him to recognize the killings of Armenians as the
so-called `genocide’. However, the US administration has never used
the term `genocide’ with regard to these historic events.*