Joe Biden has become the first US president declare formal recognition of the
Armenian genocide, more than a century after the mass killings by Ottoman troops and opening a rift between the new US administration and Ankara.
“The American people honour all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today,” Biden said in a statement on Saturday.
“Beginning on 24 April 1915 with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination.”
Biden called the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Friday, to inform him that the US would make the designation on the 106th anniversary of the genocide. The conversation was
reported to be tense and the issue was not mentioned in official accounts of the conversation.
Turkey’s status as a Nato member and longtime regional ally has prevented US presidents from making a formal designation. But relations between Washington and Ankara have soured dramatically in recent years.
The declaration marked the culmination of decades of lobbying by Armenian American organisations.
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President called Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday to inform him US would make designation on 106th anniversary of the genocide
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