US President Barack Obama marked on Saturday the anniversary of the 1915 massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks by saying he was encouraged by dialogue between Turkey and Armenia that would help recognize their “common humanity.”

Obama described the dark events of 95 years ago as “one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century,” but he stopped short of labeling the killings a “genocide,” despite vowing to use that exact term during his 2008 run for the White House.

“I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed,” the president said in a White House statement on Armenian Remembrance Day. The carefully worded comments come one month after a row with Ankara after the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution labeling the massacre a “genocide.”

Ankara recalled its ambassador from Washington in early March in protest, but he returned to the US capital one month later. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had urged the committee not to hold the vote and said after its approval that “we do not believe the full Congress will or should act on that resolution.”

On Saturday Obama said that “it is in all of our interest to see the achievement (of) a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts” about the killings. “The Meds Yeghern is a devastating chapter in the history of the Armenian people, and we must keep its memory alive in honor of those who were murdered and so that we do not repeat the grave mistakes of the past.

Tens of thousands of Armenians in Yerevan Saturday marked the mass killings amid fresh tensions with Turkey following the collapse of reconciliation efforts. Despite the political tensions, this year also saw the anniversary marked for the first time in Turkey, where human rights activists and artists in Istanbul broke with taboo and commemorated the massacres.

Even as the reconciliation effort stalled, Obama said he was “encouraged by the dialogue among Turks and Armenians, and within Turkey itself, regarding this painful history. “Together, the Turkish and Armenian people will be stronger as they acknowledge their common history and recognize their common humanity.”
 

Source: Cumhuriyet
URL: en.cumhuriyet.com/?hn=134122