Turkey’s foreign minister had warned the Biden administration that the designation would harm relations with the U.S. and be met with a strong reaction.

By Shannon Pettypiece

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Saturday officially acknowledged the killing of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks more than a century ago as genocide, a move that could complicate an already strained relationship between the U.S. and Turkey.

Biden’s predecessors have acknowledged the mass killing of Armenians but stopped short of using the term “genocide” due to Turkish objections. As a candidate, Biden said he would make the designation, and a bipartisan group of members of Congress urged Biden to take action ahead of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which is Saturday.

For Turks, the issue is an emotionally charged one wrapped up in feelings of national pride. Turkey’s foreign minister warned the Biden administration that the designation would harm relations with the U.S. and be met with a strong reaction. Turkey has been a key strategic partner for the U.S., but Biden was critical of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan during the campaign.

Biden spoke to Erdogan for the first time as president on Friday. During the call he conveyed “his interest in a constructive bilateral relationship with expanded areas of cooperation and effective management of disagreements,” the White House said in a statement. The leaders agreed to meet at the NATO summit in June, the White House said.

Concerns about straining the U.S. relationship with Turkey have led past presidents, including former President Barack Obama, to back down on campaign promises to declare the killings to be genocide. Turkey, a NATO member, has been valuable in the United States’ military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

The Turkish government, as well as human rights activists and ethnic Armenians, had a muted response to the news, describing the move as largely symbolic.

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Saturday recognized the mass killings of Armenians more than a century ago as genocide, signaling a willingness to test an increasingly frayed relationship with Turkey, long a key regional ally and an important partner within NATO.

“Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” Mr. Biden said in a statement issued on the 106th anniversary of a brutal campaign by the former Ottoman Empire that killed 1.5 million people. “And we remember so that we remain ever vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.”

The declaration by Mr. Biden reflected his administration’s commitment to human rights, a pillar of its foreign policy. It is also a break from Mr. Biden’s predecessors, who were reluctant to anger a country of strategic importance and were wary of driving its leadership toward American adversaries like Russia or Iran.

The Turkish government, as well as human rights activists and ethnic Armenians, gave a muted response to the news, which leaked days in advance, describing the move as largely symbolic.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly denied that the killings amounted to genocide, had lobbied hard to prevent the announcement, mounting a conference and media campaigns before the anniversary on Saturday.

But when Mr. Biden spoke with Mr. Erdogan on Friday, the pair had agreed only to an “effective management of disagreements,” according to a summary of the conversation provided by the White House. A statement from the Turkish presidency said both leaders agreed on the “importance of working together.” The two are scheduled to meet at a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in June.

“We affirm the history,” Mr. Biden said. “We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.”

Since taking office, Mr. Biden has kept Mr. Erdogan at a distance, calling other world leaders — and leaving his Turkish counterpart, who enjoyed a friendly relationship with President Donald J. Trump, waiting for months.

Mr. Erdogan is widely expected to use the designation to whip up support at home, where he has increasingly adopted a nationalist-Islamist stance to retain his voter base. But political analysts said he was likely to tread carefully with the United States.

Relations between the countries have reached their lowest point in decades, as Mr. Erdogan has turned increasingly combative in his dealings with Washington, particularly after a failed coup in 2016. Mr. Erdogan has blamed the bid to oust him from power on a Turkish cleric living in self-imposed exile in rural Pennsylvania, and by extension on the United States.

Tensions escalated with Turkey’s deal to buy a missile system from Russia in 2017, which prompted the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Turkey in December. Syria, too, has been a flash point. Mr. Erdogan has bitterly criticized the United States military’s support of Kurdish forces in Syria that are affiliated with a group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey, and his own operations there have further tested the Atlantic alliance.

Mr. Erdogan sees Turkey, a country of 80 million and a member of the Group of 20, as a regional power that deserves greater respect on the world stage. That view has fueled a greater geopolitical assertiveness demonstrated in military interventions in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Azerbaijan and in exploration for energy in contested waters in the eastern Mediterranean last year.

European leaders and members of the Biden administration advocate continued engagement with Mr. Erdogan’s government because Turkey houses millions of Syrian refugees who might otherwise head to Europe. They also point to Turkey’s support for Ukraine and Afghanistan, where it will maintain a small force to train Afghan army and police personnel as the United States and other coalition troops withdraw by Sept. 11.

The White House’s sustained silence toward Mr. Erdogan had been seen as a sign that Mr. Biden did not view Turkey as a priority and intended to manage the relationship at lower levels of the administration.

“They don’t want to have a conflict with him, but they don’t want to be too cozy with him either,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mr. Erdogan would also not seek to damage relations further over the genocide designation, said Asli Aydintasbas, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“In the past, Turkey used to issue all types of threats, but lately the policy toward genocide recognition from allies has been to shrug it off,” she said. “They will issue denouncements, but not go so far as to create a crisis.”

Mr. Unluhisarcikli, like other analysts and human rights defenders, questioned the timing and purpose of the announcement.

“At a time such as this, when the U.S.-Turkey relationship is very vulnerable, it will be more difficult to absorb the shock,” he said. “The Turkish government will feel obliged to respond in ways that are consequential for the U.S. and for U.S.-Turkey relationship.”

The Turkish public will see it as evidence of American double standards, and anti-Western forces within Turkey will use it to incite fury, he said.

Both opposition and pro-government leaders attacked the expected designation.

“This is an improper, unfair stance,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the largest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party. “The description in question may cause irreparable wounds in Turkey-U.S. relations that is already in a difficult state.”

Dogu Perincek, the leader of the ultranationalist Patriotic Party, in an open letter to Mr. Biden, questioned his authority to issue such a declaration. “As is known, the genocide against the Jews was adjudicated at an authorized court,” he wrote, “but regarding the 1915 incidents, there is no judicial ruling.”

The killings of Armenians occurred at the end of World War I during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey. Worried that the Christian Armenian population would align with Russia, a primary enemy of the Ottoman Turks, officials ordered mass deportations in what many historians consider the first genocide of the 20th century: Nearly 1.5 million Armenians were killed, some in massacres by soldiers and the police, others in forced exoduses to the Syrian desert that left them starved to death.

Turkey has acknowledged that widespread atrocities occurred during that period, but its leaders have adamantly denied that the killings were genocide.

In the days leading up to Mr. Biden’s announcement, Armenians and human rights activists in Turkey expressed caution, partly because of years of political seesawing over the issue.

“Personally, it is not going to make me excited,” Yetvart Danzikyan, the editor in chief of Agos, an Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper in Istanbul, said, pointing to a statement President Ronald Reagan issued in 1981 about the Holocaust that mentioned the “genocide of the Armenians” in passing.

“Of course, as an Armenian, I deem important the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the world, but actually the fact that this depends on political fluctuations bothers me,” he said.

Murat Celikkan, a journalist and longtime human rights activist, said the declaration would be good for American-Armenian citizens, but he did not expect it to change attitudes in Turkey or encourage reconciliation between Turks and Armenians.

“It did not change with more than 20 countries officially recognizing it, including Germany,” he said.

In the United States, some Armenian activists welcomed the declaration as a step forward.

“The denial of the genocide has been such a painful chapter,” said Bryan Ardouny, the executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America. “This is a really critical moment in the arc of history, in defense of human rights.”

The designation will bring an end to a longstanding denial of the slaughter, he said.

“The president is standing firmly against basically a century of denial and is charting a new course,” he said. “It’s good for America and I think it’s good for human rights everywhere.”

Katie Rogers reported from Washington, and Carlotta Gall from Istanbul. Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio contributed reporting from New York.

Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau. @katierogers

Carlotta Gall is the Istanbul bureau chief, covering Turkey. She previously covered the aftershocks of the Arab Spring from Tunisia, reported from the Balkans during the war in Kosovo and Serbia, and covered Afghanistan and Pakistan. @carlottagall • Facebook

US President Joe Biden, in a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, announced his intention to recognize the massacre of Armenians in the early 20th century in the Ottoman Empire as Genocide, Bloomberg reports, citing sources familiar with the talk between the two leaders.

Biden is expected to use the word ‘genocide’ in his statement on Saturday to recognize the Armenian Genocide Memorial Day, fulfilling a promise he made during his presidential campaign. He will become the first US president in 40 years to publicly recognize the 1915 massacre as genocide.

Bloomberg also notes that the White House did not mention the matter in a press release on Biden’s phone call with Erdogan, noting only that Biden told the Turkish leader that he was interested in a constructive bilateral relationship with expanded areas of cooperation and effective management of differences.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is preparing to formally acknowledge that the systematic killing and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey more than a century ago was genocide, according to U.S. officials.

Aaron Blake,

President Biden is preparing to go where no president since Ronald Reagan has gone — and where many have been scared away from venturing: recognizing the Armenian genocide.

The Post’s John Hudson confirms that Biden is expected to become the first president in more than three decades to officially label as genocide the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The move comes after plenty of fits and starts in the U.S. journey toward this moment. It also reflects an increasing boldness by the Biden administration both when it comes to human rights and the U.S. government’s relationship with Turkey — a complex alliance that has deteriorated in recent years but which still makes such a decision fraught.

The news also comes on the eve of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day on Friday — a date on which much of the world reflects on what it has deemed to be a genocide.

For decades, though, the United States has stopped short of that — and conspicuously so — for fear of angering Turkey and harming relations with a key ally in a vitally important region. Presidents have campaigned by declaring it a genocide and pledged to recognize it as such, but then failed to follow through. Congress has repeatedly sought to apply pressure to take that step, only to have it fall upon deaf ears.

George W. Bush wrote a letter during the 2000 campaign in which he said he would recognize the genocide, but then backed away from it as the United States once again became entangled in the Middle East and Turkey became important to the war effort in Iraq. By 2007, Bush urged Congress to reject a resolution recognizing the genocide.

Barack Obama too said during his 2008 campaign that he would recognize the genocide, but his administration never did so in his eight years. Some top foreign policy aides including Samantha Power have since expressed regret for not making good on that promise.

About the closest an administration has come to recognizing the genocide this century actually came, somewhat counterintuitively, during the presidency of Donald Trump. Trump otherwise sought a controversially close relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, even as Erdoğan drifted further toward authoritarianism. But in a news conference, then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany at one point referred to the vandalism of an “Armenian Genocide Memorial.”

In a response that reflected how sensitive this topic is, Turkey objected to the use of the word even in that context, while acknowledging that it might simply have been a “slip of the tongue.” And it did indeed turn out to be an aberration. The Trump administration pushed back on a congressional attempt to recognize the genocide in 2019. Even when legislation passed overwhelmingly with huge bipartisan support, the State Department declared that it didn’t reflect the official position of the administration.

So why now? According to experts, the answer is a combination of the Biden administration getting bolder than its predecessors on human rights — it has also labeled the killing of Uyghur Muslims in China a genocide — and on Turkey in general, along with relations with Turkey deteriorating despite Trump’s efforts to cozy up to Erdoğan.

Previously, the Biden White House issued a statement calling Turkey’s decision to withdraw from a European convention on women’s rights and domestic abuse “deeply disappointing.” The administration also issued a tough verdict on Turkey in a report on human rights abuses around the world. Biden has flatly labeled Erdoğan an autocrat and promised to confront a “new moment of advancing authoritarianism” (while not explicitly tying the comment to Turkey). And Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his confirmation hearing, referred to Turkey as “a strategic — so-called strategic — partner of ours” while criticizing its drift toward Russia.

“Biden has upended the traditional way in which U.S. presidents engage with Turkey,” said Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “The way in which the U.S. traditionally has dealt with Turkey is to try and keep them enmeshed closely with the United States and Europe through sustained engagement and tight military ties.”

Stein added: “Biden has flipped this thinking and has pocketed the idea that Turkey has no interest in leaving groups like NATO, but that close cooperation with Washington is not something that Ankara can take for granted any longer. Instead, Erdoğan has to earn it. … His administration has made the relationship nakedly transactional and, in this way, his team has become much more Turkish in how they view bilateral relations.”

While the move to recognize the Armenian genocide would build upon that nascent effort to apply pressure, there’s a reason recent presidents have avoided it. Despite an uneasy alliance, Turkey has declared such a move to be completely unacceptable and an affront to it and its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Given Turkey’s strategic placement in the Middle East, it carries potential implications in a number of areas, depending upon the response — including Russia, Syria and Ukraine.

“If dramatic, which is possible, then the relationship could really break, with impact on our forces in Turkey, cooperation on Syria, Ukraine, Libya and Iran, leading to a U.S. counter-reaction and a downward spiral,” said James F. Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Iraq who is now with the Wilson Center.

For one, experts say it could tempt Turkey to align even more closely with Russia. Turkey has been on the opposite side of Russia in a number of conflicts, including in Ukraine and Syria. It has also supported Armenia’s interests in the region. But Turkey and Russia have occasionally found their interests aligned when it comes to American influence. The Trump administration also sanctioned Turkey last year over its purchase of a Russian missile defense system.

“It would also be consistent with Putin’s MO,” said Steven A. Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations. “He offers good ties to American partners who are having trouble with the United States.”

While very few expect the decision to have immediate and recognizable impact on Turkey’s human rights practices, some see potential benefits beyond simply doing what’s right by applying the “genocide” label. Turkey faces plenty of economic strain, has lost a number of allies in recent years, and public sentiment has turned against Erdoğan. Turkey’s large youth population poses an increasing threat to Erdoğan.

Jenny White of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies says the United States increasingly has leverage in the relationship, which makes the Biden administration’s decision more practical.

“President Biden has made democracy and human rights a central tenet of his administration. At this point, the Biden administration has nothing to lose by acknowledging Turkey’s failure in these respects,” White said. “What could nudge Turkey to change? Turkey needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs Turkey right now.”

In other words, it makes sense to finally do what top American politicians have been threatening to do for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a bold step that couldn’t reverberate in the region and in U.S. foreign policy. And it’s one of the biggest early subplots in Biden’s emerging foreign policy agenda.