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Joe Biden has become the first U.S. president to cite the massacre of Armenians a century ago, now Turkey as a genocide in an announcement that will cause more friction between Washington and Ankara.
Discussing the announcement released by the White House on the occasion of Armenia Remembrance Day, a senior administration official said the confession was intended to “honor the victims” and not “blame them”.
Biden called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday to announce the announcement, an administration official said. A reading of the call between Biden and Erdogan in the White House, which was their first official relationship, did not mention that part of the conversation, but said the two leaders would hold a bilateral meeting in June on the sidelines of the NATO summit.
Biden’s recognition came at a significantly cooler period in relations between Washington and Ankara, as Turkey bought an advanced anti-aircraft system designed to throw NATO jets and led US prosecutors to sue Turkey’s state lender. Halkbank allegedly for violating sanctions against Iran.
A Biden administration official said the call between the two leaders was “very professional”.
“The two leaders have a long career, they worked very closely together in the Obama-Biden administration,” the official said, adding that there are “many issues” that Washington and Ankara can work closely on. “Several known differences. . . that needs to be addressed. ”
Erdogan said he wants to turn “a new page” with the U.S. and Europe, two of Turkey’s largest trading partners, as the country seeks to attract investment in a $ 717 billion economy and try to raise inflation and unemployment.
Most historians and nearly 30 countries judge the killing of 1.5 thousand Armenian Christians that began in 1915 as genocide led by the state. Turkey’s claims that Muslims and Christians were equally killed in the chaos of the First World War and the subsequent fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Fearing they would side with Russia’s great enemies, they rounded up and killed Armenian Christians or starved to death from their ancient homeland to parts of present-day Turkey to the Syrian desert. Campaigns, as well as those against ethnic Greeks and Syrian Christians, helped create a more homogeneous nation when the Turkish republic was established in 1923 from the ashes of the multicultural Ottoman Empire.
The former U.S. president has stepped away from the label of genocide, aware of the dangers that strategic relations with Turkey would have, where the U.S. has an air base. A Biden official said the US still recognizes Turkey as a “critical ally of NATO.”
However, Biden has said he will pursue a foreign policy based on values and has promised in the presidential campaign that he will recognize genocide as part of his commitment to defending “universal rights”. Both chambers of Congress passed resolutions in 2019 classifying the killings as genocide, and last month nearly 40 senators from both parties asked Biden to do the same.
For most Turks, accepting genocide would challenge the myths and leaders of their nation’s founders and is tantamount to accepting the historical lie. In recent years, Erdogan has expressed his condolences to the Armenians for their loss of life, and also called on foreign governments to call for genocide, recalling the ambassadors and canceling trade agreements.
Today there are less than 60,000 ethnic Armenians left in Turkey, mostly in Istanbul, and they are the target of occasional hate crimes, such as church vandalism. In 2007, Hrant Dink, the editor of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper, was shot outside his office after demanding reconciliation between Turks and Armenians.
The strong support provided by Turkey to Azerbaijan in last year’s war with Armenia highlighted how historical divisions continue to shape Ankara’s policy in the region. Ankara supplied weapons and, according to the UN, Syrian mercenaries to help its close ally Azerbaijan Armenia reclaimed much of the disputed territory in a war in the 1990s.
Erdogan has since discussed re-establishing relations with landless and impoverished Armenia, with which Turkey has no diplomatic ties after sealing the border in 1993 over the conflict with Azerbaijan. According to the news, Turkey can now avenge the fact that the Biden administration has recognized the genocide by punishing Armenia and canceling the rapprochement.
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