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It's Long Past Time For Formal Recognition

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  • It's Long Past Time For Formal Recognition

    IT'S LONG PAST TIME FOR FORMAL RECOGNITION

    Burbank Leader (Glendale, California)
    Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
    April 26, 2014 Saturday

    April 26--Somber events commemorating the 99th anniversary of the
    Armenian Genocide were held this week, complete with reflections on the
    1.5 million people who were slaughtered at the hands of the Ottoman
    Empire. We are greatly disappointed that it appears we'll all mark
    the centennial of the atrocities next year without the United States
    formally declaring the genocide and pressuring the Turkish government
    to do the same, given the glacial pace of action in that regard.

    Last year, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who has waged a long,
    lonely battle in Washington to set this situation right, introduced
    Resolution 227, which awaits approval by the House Foreign Relations
    Committee. This month, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
    approved on a 12-5 vote Resolution 410, written by committee chair
    Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL). The full Senate
    has not yet put it on the agenda; we hope Sen. Majority Leader Harry
    Reid (D-NV) takes it up before this session ends. As we reported
    in recent days, Schiff hopes the Senate committee's vote will help
    jump-start his legislation. "It does put pressure on the House when
    the Senate acts... only time will tell," he told the News-Press.

    Although the Turkish narrative of those horrendous years has
    appeared to soften at least to a small degree recently, with that
    country's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday offering
    his condolences to descendants of the massacres, not enough has been
    said or done to properly admit and atone for the genocide. And it looks
    like the U.S. president is still loath to say the G-word out loud.

    We understand he has diplomatic concerns -- the U.S. needs Turkey as
    a steady ally in that turbulent part of the world -- but, despite all
    the evidence that's been presented over the years, it's fundamentally
    ridiculous that our country has not yet recognized what happened to the
    Armenians at the hands of the Turks in 1915. We can't ignore atrocities
    of our allies any less so than we could ignore those of our enemies.

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