Biden tells Erdogan he’ll recognize Armenian Genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. President Joe Biden told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, April 23 that he intends to recognize the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Bloomberg reports citing people familiar with a call between the leaders.

Biden is expected to use the word “genocide” in a statement Saturday recognizing Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, making good on a promise from his presidential campaign. He would be the first U.S. president in 40 years to publicly state that the mass killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire were a genocide.

The White House did not mention the issue in a statement about Biden’s call with Erdogan, the first of his presidency, saying only that Biden told the Turkish leader that he’s interested in a “constructive bilateral relationship with expanded areas of cooperation and effective management of disagreements.”

Ronald Reagan was the last U.S. president to call the atrocities committed against the Armenians a “genocide,” in 1981, but he soon backtracked under pressure from Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after the end of World War I.

On April 24, 1915, a large group of Armenian intellectuals was rounded up and assassinated in Constantinople by the Ottoman government. Today, on April 24, Armenians worldwide are commemorating the 106th anniversary of the Genocide which continued until 1923. Some three dozen countries, hundreds of local government bodies and international organizations have so far recognized the killings of 1.5 million Armenians as Genocide. Turkey denies to this day.