AHVAL
APril 24 2019
White House, once again, calls 1915 events by Armenian name "Meds Yeghern"
This story has been updated by Armenian Assembly of America Executive Director Bryan Ardouny's and Turkish MFA's statements.
The White House has released a statement on April 24, Armenian Remembrance Day, to "commemorate the Meds Yeghern and honor the memory of those who suffered in one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century."
Meds Yeghern, meaning "the great crime," is the term used by Armenians to refer to the 1915 mass displacement and killing of Ottoman Armenians, who were considered a threat by the leadership of the crumbling empire. The term was used for first time by previous U.S. President, Barack Obama.
These events have been widely accepted by scholars, and acknowledged by dozens of other countries, as a genocide – a claim strongly disputed by Turkey, which accepts that the killings took place but denies that their circumstances constituted genocide.
This year's statement released by the White House is very similar to what was released last year and a year earlier, after Trump came to office.
Every year the topic of genocide is being debated with the Armenian diaspora asking the White House to call the events genocide, rather than Meds Yeghern or other terms.
American presidents have for years issued statements on the April 24th to commemorate the day.
Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is expected to introduce a bill on the genocide to the Committee, following its current recess, according to Ahval’s sources at U.S. Congress.
Earlier this month, bipartisan Armenian Genocide resolutions were introduced in both the Senate spearheaded by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) & Ted Cruz (R-TX) and in the House of Representatives spearheaded by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) & Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), the AAA website reported .
So far, only President Ronald Reagan in 1981 has used the term genocide during a public even, the opening of the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC. “Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples – the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.” Reagan stated.
The White House Statement continued:
Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. On this day of remembrance, we again join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the many lives lost.
The president also remembered Raphael Lemkin, human rights activist and lawyer who first coined the term "genocide" in 1940s and defined the Armenian massacres as such.
“The failure to squarely acknowledge the Armenian Genocide reflects a pattern not only in this year’s presidential statement, but past administrations as well that fosters an atmosphere for denial and empowers authoritarian regimes to persecute Christians and other minorities,” stated Armenian Assembly of America Executive Director Bryan Ardouny. “A genocide denied is an injustice to all who are being persecuted,” he added in an email to reporters displaying his organisation's displeasure over the statement.
Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement shortly after White House's Remembrance Day statement and said, Turkey rejects it.
Turkish MFA statement continued to say that "we invite President Trump to be fair while reminding that there were more than 500 thousand Muslims' pains who were massacred by Armenian rebels."