OBAMA STOPS SHORT OF CALLING ARMENIAN DEATHS GENOCIDE (1ST LEAD)
Monsters and Critics.com
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Ap ril 24 2009
Washington – US President Barack Obama on Friday called for a ‘just
acknowledgment of the facts’ over the deaths of an estimated 1.5
million Armenians toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, but stopped
short of declaring that the killings were genocidal.
Obama has been under pressure from the Armenian-American community
to live up to a campaign pledge by declaring that the massacres from
1915 to 1923 amounted to a genocide.
Turkey, a critical US ally, fiercely rejects suggestions that the
killings were a genocide and warns that any such language would have
severe consequences on relations between Ankara and Washington.
Obama issued an annual presidential statement on the 94th anniversary
of the beginning of the atrocities, saying his views from the campaign
have not changed, but he did not use the term ‘genocide.’
‘I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and
my view of that history has not changed,’ Obama said. ‘My interest
remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of
the facts.’
During the campaign, Obama promised to recognize the mass killings
as a genocide, drawing praise from Armenian American advocates. But
those groups have continued to express disappointment the president
has not done so.
The United States is heavily reliant on Turkey’s support in the
region. The Incirlik Air Base in the southern part of the country is
critical for ferrying military supplies to Iraq and Afghanistan, and
other key US objections, including Middle East peace and confronting
Iran’s nuclear activities.