California congressman 'gravely disappointed' Obama doesn't recognize Armenian slaughter as genocide (Los Angeles Times)
Burbank Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said Friday morning that he was "gravely disappointed" that President Obama didn't call the century-old massacre of 1.5 million Armenians genocide.
"For a president who knows the history so well, who spoke so passionately about the genocide as a senator and presidential candidate, and who has always championed human rights, the choice of silence and complicity is all the more painfully inexplicable," Schiff said in a statement.
The White House released a statement from Obama for Armenian Remembrance Day that stopped short of calling it genocide.
"As we look from the past to the future, we continue to underscore the importance of historical remembrance as a tool of prevention, as we call for a full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts, which would serve the interests of all concerned. I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed. I have also seen that peoples and nations grow stronger, and build a foundation for a more just and tolerant future, by acknowledging and reckoning with painful elements of the past," Obama said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Schiff publicly called for Obama to use the word genocide before leaving office.
The U.S. is among the countries that don't formally recognize as an act of genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923.
Source: Los Angeles Times