ARMENIAN ACTIVISTS URGE OBAMA TO RECOGNISE ‘GENOCIDE’

Agence France Presse — English
April 21, 2009 Tuesday 3:38 PM GMT

Dozens of Armenian youth activists marched on the US embassy in
Yerevan on Tuesday to call on President Barack Obama to recognise
the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as "genocide."

About 100 young activists with the opposition Heritage party
marched from central Yerevan to the embassy, carrying the flags of
21 countries and international organisations that have recognised
the genocide label.

"We are here to give a letter to US President Obama with an appeal
to recognise the Armenian genocide. It is time for him to fulfill
the promise he made during his election campaign," said one of the
march’s organisers, David Sanasarian.

Armenia on Friday will mark the 94th anniversary of the killings,
which have been at the root of a long diplomatic feud with neighbouring
Turkey.

Obama pledged during his 2008 White House run that he would recognise
the 1915-1917 massacres as genocide and has strongly backed US
congressional resolutions to that effect.

But he avoided using the politically charged terminology during a
visit to Turkey earlier this month, instead calling for Armenia and
Turkey to build on recent efforts at reconciliation.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkey rejects the genocide label, saying that 300,000 Armenians
and at least an equal number of Turks were killed in civil strife in
1915-1917, when the Christian Armenians, backed by Russia, rose up
against the Ottomans.