Congressman Adam Schiff took to the House floor today to issue an open letter to President Joe Biden to clearly and unequivocally recognize the Armenian Genocide.
“Mr. President, in just five days, the world will mark the 106-th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide, the systemic murder and displacement of 1.5 million Armenian women, men, and children by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. This will be the first April 24-th of your presidency, and your first opportunity to follow through on your promise to recognize the genocide and your decades of leadership on this issue. As president it is now in your power to right decades of wrongs and in so doing give meaning to your statement last year, when you acknowledged the genocide and said: “silence is complicity.”
As a candidate and now as president, you have spoken of your commitment to human rights.
The facts of the genocide are not in serious dispute. They were recorded in real time by American diplomats. On behalf of hundreds of thousands of Armenian Americans, the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of genocide survivors, I ask you - keep that promise. Recognize the Armenian Genocide.
The word ‘genocide’ is significant, because genocide is not a problem of the past, it is a problem of today. And it is a danger today in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), where Turkey assisted Azerbaijan in making war on the Armenians again, and in so doing, threaten another potential genocide,” Congressman Adam Schiff said.
