OBAMA MARKS ARMENIAN ‘ATROCITY’

BBC NEWS
mericas/8017679.stm
2009/04/24 19:37:03 GMT

Barack Obama has refrained from calling the killing of Armenians by
Turks in World War I "genocide" despite using the term during his
election campaign.

However, the US president did describe the killing of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians as "one of the great atrocities of the 20th
century".

He appealed for Turks and Armenians to "address the facts of the past
as a part of their efforts to move forward".

The two countries agreed this week on a roadmap for normalising
relations.

" International recognition… is a matter of restoring historic
justice " Serzh Sarkisian Armenian president

While admitting many Armenians were killed, Turkey, a Nato member and
key American ally in the Muslim world, denies committing genocide,
saying the deaths resulted from wartime fighting.

Armenia has long campaigned for the loss of its people to be recognised
as a crime of genocide and it commemorated the event with ceremonies
on Friday.

‘My view unchanged’

"I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915,
and my view of that history has not changed," Mr Obama said in a
written statement.

"My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just
acknowledgment of the facts."

In a January 2008 statement on his campaign website, Mr Obama wrote:
"The Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or
a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an
overwhelming body of historical evidence."

"America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian
genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides," the 2008 statement
added.

On Friday, he said the Armenians killed in the final days of the
Ottoman Empire "must live on in our memories".

"I strongly support efforts by the Turkish and Armenian people to
work through this painful history in a way that is honest, open,
and constructive," he added.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress