US Congressmen call on Trump to recognize Armenian Genocide
A bipartisan letter signed by 84 Members of Congress was sent to President Donald Trump urging him to affirm the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly). Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) spearheaded the letter asking the White House to honor the United States' historic leadership in defending human rights and to properly characterize the events of 1915 as a genocide in this year's presidential statement on April 24th. The letter to President Trump states: "In leading an honest and accurate American remembrance of this known case of genocide, you will stand with President Reagan, who recognized the Armenian Genocide in 1981, and the Eisenhower Administration, which did the same in a 1951 submission to the International Court of Justice." The situation is unique because the letter was signed by a number of key figures, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA), Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Representative Eliot L. Engel, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Adam Schiff, a Democrat representative from the 28th congressional district of California, as well as a number of senators, including Edward Markey from Massachusetts. “I shall address a letter to President Trump urging him to follow the example of the Republican Party leaders and recognize the Armenian Genocide,” said the senator. He reminded that the Armenian Genocide was recognized in the past by a number of Republican leaders. During his time in office, President Ronald Reagan squarely acknowledged the Armenian Genocide stating that "Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it - and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples - the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten."
