The House voted 405 – 11 Tuesday to recognize the Armenian Genocide that killed 1.5 million Armenians perpetrated by Turkey in 1915. The killing of the 1.5 million Armenians has been acknowledged by the United States but never officially recognized as genocide. Turkey claims the Armenians died as a result of warfare and deny there was genocide.
The vote comes while Turkey continues to attack Kurdish towns along the Syrian border after the United States withdrew their forces in what some have called ethnic cleansing.
The resolution now heads to the Senate where it is not known if that legislative body will take a vote.
Congress member TJ Cox from the 21st District was one of the cosponsors and put out the following press release:
This evening, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the first-ever acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide, a documented war crime against the Armenian people. Rep. TJ Cox (CA-21) cosponsored this legislation and released the following statement:
“I’m very glad to cosponsor this legislation establishing a formal remembrance and recognition of the Armenian Genocide and I’m proud our nation has finally found the courage to acknowledge this tragedy and injustice,” said Rep. Cox. “Our previous silence was an insult to the Armenian-American community. We must acknowledge acts of war against innocent civilians wherever they occur, to defend human dignity and stop these atrocities from happening again.”
America’s failure to do this for the last 35 years or so to avoid making Turkey mad is pretty sad.
But I think the public acknowledgement that needs to be condemned right now is the ethic cleansing of the Kurds committed by the same Erdogan who actually ordered his goons to attack American citizens on American soil a couple of years ago.
The 11 representatives that voted no probably think that holocaust is fake too.