President Barack Obama will once again break a 2008 campaign pledge to refer to the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as “genocide,” mainly to appease Turkey, whose founding fathers committed the genocide.
His annual statement commemorating the genocide later this month will leave the term out, as it has every year since Obama was elected, reported Politico. As a 2008 candidate he had promised to use the term.
“This is a betrayal of the truth, a betrayal of trust, a disgraceful national surrender to a foreign gag order being imposed by the government of Turkey,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told Politico.
The group had hoped this 100th anniversary of the genocide would be different, but was informed of Obama’s decision by the White House chief of staff and deputy national security adviser in a meeting at the White House Tuesday.
Twenty-three countries and 43 U.S. states have called the massacre a genocide, including most European states, reported The Los Angeles Times. German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled last week the Berlin government would also support a planned resolution calling the massacre a genocide.
Pope Francis also weighed in last week, calling the slaughter “the first genocide of the 20th century.”
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