The Kardashian family came to their historic homeland to participate in events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

“Today is the 105anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. I am proud to be Armenian! We can not be destroyed. We will always rise,” she wrote.

She also quoted William Saroyan: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”

Washington, D.C. – President Donald Trump’s April 24th statement on the 105th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide misses the mark, fosters denial, and does not reflect America’s proud record of genocide affirmation, reported the Armenian Assembly of America. This year’s statement, as has been the case in previous years, reflects a dictionary definition of genocide and uses the Armenian expression, Medz Yeghern, but falls short of President Ronald Reagan’s declarative statement in 1981: “Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples – the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.”
“The Administration’s statement falls short of the national consensus as reflected in the unequivocal affirmation by the Congress of the United States which overwhelmingly adopted H.Res. 296 and S.Res. 150 last Fall, as well as by 49 American states,” stated Armenian Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny. H.Res. 296 sailed through the House of Representatives by a vote of 405 to 11  and S.Res. 150 cleared the United States Senate by unanimous consent in October and December of 2019, respectively. 
Last Fall at the Armenian Assembly’s National Advocacy Conference honoring Armenian American Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA), she discussed the importance of genocide affirmation and many of her colleagues concurred, including former Senator and Vice President Joe Biden, who stated, in part, in his letter to the Armenian Assembly: “The United States must reaffirm, once and for all, our record on the Armenian Genocide.” “We must never forget or remain silent about this horrific and systematic campaign of extermination…Failing to remember or acknowledge the fact of a genocide only paves the way for future mass atrocities,” the letter continued. 
“Instead of supporting bipartisan Armenian Genocide resolutions, last Fall the Administration inexplicably enabled Turkey’s president to use the White House as a venue for genocide denial in an effort to thwart the will of Congress,” stated Assembly Co-Chairs Anthony Barsamian and Van Krikorian. “The failure to squarely affirm the Armenian Genocide hurts U.S. credibility on human rights around the world, and serves to empower authoritarian regimes as they continue to persecute Christians and other minorities,” the Co-Chairs added. “The facts of the Armenian Genocide and America’s record are clear. Presidential affirmation is inevitable and this was a missed opportunity,” the Co-Chairs concluded.
President Theodore Roosevelt stated that the atrocities committed by the “Turks on the Armenians” was “so hideous that it is difficult to name them…people whose little children are murdered and their women raped.” In a letter to Cleveland Dodge, who led the congressionally chartered Near East Relief organization headquartered in New York City, President Roosevelt stated further that it “was the greatest crime of the war, and failure to act against Turkey is to condone it…”  Major General James G. Harbord, who served as General John J. Pershing’s Chief of Staff during World War I, led an American Military Mission to Armenia and submitted a report from the U.S.S. Martha Washington in 1919. The report read in part: “[m]utilation, violation, torture and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages.”
As the Congressional resolutions clearly espouse, “the United States has a proud history of recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide.” The Administration’s departure from the norms of human rights, established over a century ago, diminish the standing of the U.S. government in the world community. It remains for the Administration to unequivocally affirm the Armenian Genocide.  While we welcome the Administration’s “commitment to protecting vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities” and its encouragement of Turks reckoning “with their painful history,” we know from experience that actions speak louder than words and an unambiguous statement on the Armenian Genocide would go farther in meeting those goals. Minorities across Turkey remain under threat and much more can be done to see to it that the most basic freedoms of human rights advocates and journalists in Turkey are protected. Seeing today’s problems in the light of the Armenian Genocide gives proper context to understanding the persistence of the problems in Turkey as well as a strategy for overcoming them. The Administration can at the very least come to the defense of someone of Hasan Cemal’s stature, the grandson of one of the triumvirate responsible for the Armenian Genocide, and join him in recognizing and condemning the crimes committed in 1915.

By David Brennan

Friday marks Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, on which the early 20th-century killing of more than 1.5 million Armenians is remembered worldwide.

The genocide, which occurred in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, is a contentious topic, still denied by Turkey— the Ottoman successor state. Official recognition of the massacre as a genocide doubles as an affront to the Turkish government, meaning many nations—including the U.S.—still refuse to do so.

In December, a diplomatic spat between the U.S. and Turkey gave lawmakers the cover to pass a non-binding resolution recognizing the incident as a genocide. Both the House and the Senate voted in favor, but the White House refused to take up either resolution, in line with long-established U.S. practice.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry issued a statement Friday condemning the “heinous crime, committed with the intent to destroy in whole the Armenian people and deprive them of their homeland.” The ministry said the massacre was “the first genocide of the 20th century.

The killing of Ottoman Armenians stretched from roughly 1915 to 1923. The number of those killed is disputed—Armenian groups say the toll was as high as 1.5 million, while Turkey puts the number in the hundreds of thousands. Turkey maintains that those who died did so while fighting against Ottoman forces.

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Huge numbers of Armenians were forcibly relocated from their homes to inhospitable lands such as the deserts of Syria and elsewhere during this period. Most of the victims died from starvation and exhaustion. Turkey maintains this does not constitute a genocide, but the collapsing Ottoman government executed several top officials for their role in the massacres.

The House and Senate broke with traditional U.S. policy in recognizing the persecution of the Armenians as a genocide in December. The votes came soon after NATO ally Turkey launched an invasion of northeastern Syria to attack Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) troops—led by Kurdish militias that Turkey considers terrorist groups—and attempting to clear them from a stretch of the Turkish border.

The SDF bore the brunt of the Western offensive against Islamic State militants in Syria, fighting to squash the so-called caliphate with U.S. and coalition support, taking some 12,000 casualties in the process.

President Donald Trump ordered U.S. forces to withdraw from northeastern Syria just before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his offensive, prompting criticism that Trump effectively gave the operation a green light.

Relations between the U.S. and Turkey were already strained, partially due to Ankara’s purchase of a Russian anti-aircraft system despite protests from Washington. Turkey went ahead with the purchase, and, in response, the U.S. kicked the country out of the F-35 stealth jet program.

Regardless, the White House did not take up the House or Senate resolution recognizing the Armenian massacres as a genocide. At the time, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez—a sponsor of the bill that passed the Senate unanimously—told Newsweek the atrocity was a “horrifying factual reality that should never be denied.”

Menendez said he was “deeply disappointed that both President Trump and Secretary [Mike] Pompeo have yet to find their moral compass on this issue, and that they insist on allowing Turkey to have a veto on our own domestic decision.”

Turkey condemned both the House and Senate resolutions. The Foreign Ministry condemned the House vote as a “shameful” and “meaningless political step” designed to appeal to the “Armenian lobby and anti-Turkey groups.”

When the Senate unanimously approved its bill, Turkish Communication Director Fahrettin Altun said the development threatened “the future of our bilateral relationship.”

In December, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the Trump administration’s position on genocide recognition “has not changed.”

She directed journalists towards a statement made by Trump on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day 2019, in which he honored “the memory of those who suffered in one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.” Trump’s statement did not use the word “genocide.”

A State Department spokesperson told Newsweek that the administration’s position on the matter has not changed. “As President Trump’s official statement earlier today makes clear, the U.S. government acknowledges and mourns the one and a half million Armenians who were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths at the end of the Ottoman Empire,” the spokesperson explained.

Trump’s statement read, “On this day of remembrance, we pay respect to those who suffered and lost their lives, while also renewing our commitment to fostering a more humane and peaceful world.”

The president added, “We welcome efforts by the Armenians and Turks to acknowledge and reckon with their painful history.  On this day, we believe it is our obligation to remember those who suffered and perished and reaffirm our commitment to protecting vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities around the world.”

This article has been updated to include comment from the State Department.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/why-armenian-genocide-remains-unrecognized-us-despite-bipartisan-efforts-1500038

I stood there that afternoon staring at the nearly 20-foot monument located inside the Masis Ararat Cemetery off Belmont and Hughes. What I was looking at was an eagle swopping down and grabbing a snake.

The monument, located near the middle of the cemetery, is dedicated to Soghomon Tehlirian. Tehlirian avenged the murder of his father, mother, three sisters, two brothers and a niece by shooting Talaat Pasha, one of the principal architects of the Armenian Genocide. A Berlin jury found Tehlirian not guilty by reason of temporary insanity. Most experts agree that Talaat had an active role in developing the plans to eliminate the Armenians.

My grandparents talked about Tehlirian. They also despised Talaat, a member of the Young Turks regime. Ironic that now, in their final resting place, they are steps away from this monument.

Like many others, commemorating the Genocide was important to my grandparents. I am certain they thought daily of those atrocities committed against the innocent civilian population. The truth is that for Armenians in America and around the world there is this heaviness that we feel when it comes to the Genocide, and this idea that so much was taken from us. For Tehlirian it was personal. His immediate family members were part of the 1.5 million killed.

Quantifying the loss is nearly impossible. My family, both sides, were landowners and wealthy. All of that was taken from them at the order of the Ottoman Turkish government. The part that bothers me the most is the spin by the present-day Turkish government that it was the Armenians fault. This is “victim blaming” at its highest degree.

This year as April 24^th approaches, there will be no massive commemorations. No large protests in front of the Turkish embassies. No flags raised in front of Fresno’s City Hall and the cemetery. No noontime or evening gatherings at Fresno State.

Instead, families are left to commemorate in private, sheltering in place. Even though the coronavirus has erased the ability for public gatherings, I bet families will still commemorate. I ask those reading this to join my family in lighting a candle on the evening of April 24^th and remembering those innocent lives that were lost. Since you are home, find a movie about the Genocide (“The Promise,” “Architects of Denial,” as well as others) to learn more. Although this occurred more than 100 years ago, it is still real and painful today.

As I began to drive off from the cemetery, I had many thoughts. I remembered a poem by Fresno’s own William Saroyan. His poem reads in part, “… Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”

This year, just as commemorations will be different, there is a silver lining. The U.S. House and Senate passed resolutions recognizing the Genocide. It’s one more reason to celebrate and be proud of our country, the U.S.A. Armenian Americans have done really well in Fresno and the United States. They’ve led companies, been successful in business, construction, law, recycling, politics, food, health care, entertainment and much more.

As far as that pesky coronavirus that is shaking up the world, an Armenian American is the co-founder and chairman of one of the companies leading to create a much needed vaccine. As Saroyan so eloquently put it, “…see if they will not create a New Armenia.” Sevag Tateosian is an analyst with the Fresno County Department of Public Health. He hosts and produces The Central Valley Ledger on CMAC Comcast 93 and Att 99.
Read more here: https://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article242091886.html#storylink=cpy