Armenian Assembly of America: America deserves a president who speaks truthfully and condemns all genocides

"America deserves a president who speaks truthfully and condemns all genocides," stated Executive Director of American Assembly of Armenia (AAA) Bryan Ardouny. "Selective acknowledgment, especially at a time when Christians and other minorities are being persecuted is indefensible, sends the wrong message and hurts U.S. credibility," Ardouny added. 

According to the organization's statement, the AAA considers that the US president passed up the opportunity to keep his word and failed to set the record straight once and for all. "Thus in the final year of his administration, President Obama again avoided characterizing the systematic murder and ethnic cleansing committed against Armenians in 1915 as genocide", the statement reads.

It is noted, that the missed opportunity is all the more regrettable as it could have made U.S. policy consistent across the board consonant with Secretary Kerry's endorsement of the Congressional resolution unanimously adopted in March condemning the atrocities committed by ISIS as genocide against Christian, Yezidi, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria. As the Secretary stated: "We know that in areas under its control, Daesh [ISIS] has made a systematic effort to destroy the cultural heritage of ancient communities - destroying Armenian, Syrian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches..."

President Obama could have strengthened the policy of containing ISIS by invoking the parallels in ideology and implementation between the Young Turk regime and the so- called Islamic Caliphate that persecutes all minorities to the point of extermination and the utter destruction of their historic and cultural heritage, including their places of worship. It is all the more disappointing to see that this lapse is due to Turkish government pressure when there is clear evidence pointing to the same government having long tolerated the conduits that promoted ISIS.

"In addition, in this day and age, that the Republic of Armenia has witnessed the arrival of approximately 20,000 refugees from Syria is one further reminder of the lasting consequences of the Armenian Genocide. These are families who were displaced during the World War I Genocide and are being displaced again because of Turkish support to ISIS.  If further proof was needed of the spreading violence across the region inspired by ISIS, the treatment of the remains of Armenian soldiers killed in this month's 4 day-war launched by Azerbaijan with Turkish support in Nagorno Karabakh arrived as more than disquieting confirmation. The abomination of headless corpses of young men who fell in battle cannot in any shape or form be tolerated and yet again the Obama Administration chose not to see that the pattern of persecutions in Syria and Iraq now has emerged in Azerbaijan", the statement reads.