ASIA/TURKEY - US Parliament puts the vote on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide on the agenda

Washington (Agenzia Fides) - The US House of Representatives, a branch of the United States Congress, is preparing to put to the vote a resolution that would entail the official recognition by the US of the Armenian Genocide, the systematic massacre of Armenians perpetrated in the territories of the Anatolian Peninsula in 1915. The vote on the resolution in question was included on the agenda of parliamentary work next week. The resolution was presented by some parliamentarians last April, and since then it had received the support of 117 representatives of the House, currently a Democratic majority. In the context of the tensions between the US and Turkey over Syrian scenarios, the parliamentary vote on the controversial issue of the Armenian Genocide is explicitly presented by some of its supporters as a potential factor of US pressure on the choices of the Turkish political leadership. "We are preparing to have a provision on sanctions against Turkey, and also a provision on the Armenian Genocide. I am sure the government of Turkey is not happy with [these plans], but then again we are not happy with the government of Turkey", said Eliot Engel, President of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, in a radio interview.
Also Armenian associations and groups operating in the USA have expressed satisfaction with the initiative, which according to some media enjoys the support of Democrat Nancy Pelosi, President of the Chamber. "The recent Turkish attack on vulnerable ethnic groups", said Brian Ardouny, Executive Director of the Armenian Assembly of America in reference to the Turkish military intervention in the territories of north-eastern Syria, "confirms the need for the Congress to recognize the Armenian Genocide in unequivocal terms, approving the resolutions already presented to the House of Representatives and the Senate".
To date, the various attempts made in the USA by Armenian associations to vote for parliamentary resolutions on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide have fallen on deaf ears, due to the opposition of the various presidential administrations interested in not compromising the good relations between Turkey and the US. US President Donald Trump, as reported by Fides (see Fides 25/4/2017), in April 2017 had dedicated an official pronouncement to the planned massacres suffered in the Anatolian Peninsula by the Armenians in 1915, but had avoided applying to those systematic massacres the definition of "Armenian genocide", following the line of its last 4 predecessors in order not to provoke resentful reactions from Turkey.
In the past, US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had used the expression "Armenian Genocide," but then, from George H. Bush to Barack Obama, the expression had disappeared from the lexicon of White House leaders in their official pronouncements.
The US press recalls that President Obama, also due to Turkish pressure on the US Congress, had set aside the promise made during an electoral campaign to recognize the genocidal nature of the massacres suffered in the current Turkish territory by the Armenians more than a century ago. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 25/10/2019)

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