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GUEST: Zanku Armenian, Board of Directors for the Western Region Armenian National Committee of America

Congressional supporters of an Armenian Genocide Recognition bill put off a vote last week on the measure as pressure mounted from Turkish officials and the Bush Administration. Democratic Congressman and bill co-sponsor Adam Schiff was the lead author of a letter that stated that the resolution would be brought up at a more opportune occasion “sometime later this year or in 2008.” Upon the bills passage through the House of Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this month, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to the US and warned that a vote on the resolution could hamper relations between the two countries thus impairing US military operations in Iraq. Bush Administration officials weighed in against passing the recognition bill as the delay on the vote followed. Considered to be the first genocide of the 20th century, the Ottoman Turkish government began a systematic campaign of arrests, deportation, and annihilation against the Armenian people on April 24, 1915. By 1923, mass killings had claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians. To this day, the Turkish government continues to deny that the genocide ever took place, and despite numerous nations recognizing the Armenian Genocide, the United States, after 92 years, has yet to officially recognize it. Despite the lack of official federal acknowledgment, forty U.S. states have officially recognized the genocide as has the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

For more information, visit www.anca.org/