By Nicole Ramirez – McIntyre in the Morning
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President Obama will not use the word Genocide to describe the slaughter of Armenian’s at the hands of Ottoman Turks for the 100th year commemoration.
In 2008, while running for President, then Senator Obama promised he would acknowledge the Armenian Genocide. Now that he’s changed his mind, the news came as a disappointment to Armenian-American groups, who have lobbied the administration to use the word “genocide” to describe the systematic killing of more than 1 million ethnic Armenians in 1915.
On McIntyre in the Morning democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff said, this really undermines are creditability and it gains us nothing with the Turks.
“We have tried to get Turkey to close their border to the foreign fighters joining ISIL and to the revenues that help support ISIL,” he said. “The reality is Turkey does what it thinks is in its interest and nothing more.”
Turkey has denied the genocide and has said this is not in their character. Schiff believes the Turks fear having to pay reformation or make restitution or Turks who have Armenian property will be forced to give it up
“They have a hundred years invested in denial and for the government to come out now and come clean and say you know we’ve been lying about this for a long time and it’s time to tell the truth, that’s a tough thing to do,” said Schiff.
The Armenian families have said they had higher hopes with President Obama in office but are deeply disappointed and heartbroken.
“This isn’t the first President to make that promise and to break it,” he said. “I think if Angela Merkel can recognize the genocide as she has with a large Turkish population, the President of the Unites States ought to be able to.”
The Burbank Congressman on Wednesday read the names of 1,000 people killed during the Armenian Genocide from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Schiff also read the names of constituents’ relatives and those in the Armenian American community that were submitted to his office, as well as tweeted the names with the hashtag #NeverForget1915.
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