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| House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was honored to join her colleagues "in solemn remembrance of one of the great atrocities of the 20th century" |
Armenia rejoiced but Turkey was furious on Wednesday after the US House of Representatives passed a historic resolution recognizing mass killings of Armenians a century ago as genocide.
With
tensions already high over Turkey's assault on Kurdish-controlled areas of
northern Syria, US lawmakers voted 405 to 11 on Tuesday in support of the
measure to "commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition
and remembrance."
The move
was a first for the US Congress, where similar measures with such direct
language have been introduced for decades but never passed.
The
resolution says the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire between
1915 and 1923 amounted to genocide, a claim recognized by some 30 countries.
Turkey
strongly denies the accusation of genocide and says that both Armenians and
Turks died as a result of World War I. It puts the death toll in the hundreds
of thousands.
Ankara was
swift to condemn the measure, summoning the American ambassador and calling the
vote a "meaningless political step".
"This
step which was taken is worthless and we do not recognize it," Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech.
"A
country whose history is full of the stain of genocide and slavery neither has
the right to say anything nor to lecture Turkey," he said.
Ties
between Washington and NATO member Turkey have been strained by Ankara's
offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, which came after US
forces withdrew from the area.
'Historical justice'
The House
also passed a measure on Tuesday imposing sanctions on senior Turkish officials
involved in the Syria offensive.
The
international recognition of the killings as genocide has long been the top
priority of Armenia's foreign policy, supported by vigorous campaigning by
Armenian diasporas around the world.
Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed the House move, tweeting that it was a
"bold step towards serving truth and historical #justice that also offers
comfort to millions of descendants of the Armenian Genocide survivors."
The Armenian foreign ministry said the resolution was of "profound significance" and thanked US lawmakers for "their overwhelming commitment to truth, justice, humanity and solidarity, and to universal values of human rights."
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Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed a US House of Representatives
resolution
officially recognizing the "Armenian genocide"
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The Armenian foreign ministry said the resolution was of "profound significance" and thanked US lawmakers for "their overwhelming commitment to truth, justice, humanity and solidarity, and to universal values of human rights."
The
sentiment was shared by Armenians on the streets of the capital Yerevan.
"I am
so happy that the US has finally recognised the Armenian genocide," said
69-year-old cobbler Koryun Hakobyan.
"Other
countries will now follow suit."
The hilltop
genocide memorial that dominates Yerevan's skyline draws hundreds of thousands
on April 24 each year to mark the anniversary of the start of the tragedy.
In April
2015, on the centenary of the killings, the Armenian Church conferred sainthood
on victims of the massacres.
Kim
Kardashian, the US reality star who is a prominent member of the Armenian
diaspora and visited Yerevan for the 2015 anniversary, hailed the Washington
vote on social media.
'Anti-Turkey groups'
"WOW
LOOK AT THESE INCREDIBLE NUMBERS!!! THE U.S. JUST RECOGNIZED THE ARMENIAN
GENOCIDE!!!!" she wrote in a Tweet to her 62 million followers.
Turkey's
foreign ministry suggested the House measure was the result of domestic
politics in the United States, where people of Armenian origin number between
500,000 and 1.5 million.
"Its
sole addressees are the Armenian lobby and anti-Turkey groups," the
ministry said.
In 2017,
newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump criticized the killings as
"one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century," but in
keeping with longstanding US practice he stopped short of using the word
genocide.
Before
being elected in 2008, Trump's predecessor Barack Obama had pledged to
recognize the killings as genocide, but ultimately did not do so during his two
terms in office.
House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that the truth of the "staggering
crime" had been denied too often.
"Today,
let us clearly state the facts on the floor of this House to be etched forever
into the Congressional Record: The barbarism committed against the Armenian
people was a genocide."
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