President Joe Biden on Saturday became the first U.S. leader in decades to acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century as a genocide.
April 24 (UPI) — President Joe Biden on Saturday became the first U.S. leader in decades to acknowledge the mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century as a genocide. He used the language in a statement to mark Armenian Remembrance Day. Saturday was the 106th anniversary of the start of the genocide, in which Ottoman authorities rounded up, and deported or killed more than 1 million Armenians. « Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring, » Biden said. « We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history, » Biden said, using the Armenian term for the genocide. « And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms. » The use of the term « genocide » in Biden’s statement is likely to cause tension between his administration and Turkey, which denies that it mistreated Armenians.
