Member-only story
No Easy Answers to Improve Turkey-U.S. Relations
A Biden campaign promise to officially recognize Armenian genocide is further straining an already collapsing relationship.
Among other recent complications besetting the diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, a bipartisan coalition of nearly 40 lawmakers has called on President Joe Biden to formally recognize the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian genocide.
The concerned senators cited a Medium post written by then-candidate Biden in April 2020, which commemorated Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, and promised that Biden would officially recognize the genocide if elected, “to make clear that the U.S. government recognizes this terrible truth.”
“It is particularly important to speak these words and commemorate this history at a moment when we are reminded daily of the power of truth, and of our shared responsibility to stand against hate — because silence is complicity,” Biden wrote on Medium. “If we do not fully acknowledge, commemorate, and teach our children about genocide, the words ‘never again’ lose their meaning.”
“From 1915 to 1923, the Ottoman Empire systematically sought to eliminate the Armenian population, killing 1.5 million Armenians and driving hundreds of thousands more from their homeland,” Biden’s Medium post stated, unequivocally. “We join the Armenian…