Despite protests from Turkey, the US Congress recognized the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide during the First World War. After the House of Representatives, the Senate also unanimously passed a resolution. It states that the US recognizes the Armenian genocide and condemns the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.
Democratic Senator Bob Menendez had brought the resolution into the chamber. He said after the adoption on Twitter, the Senate had risen, "to confirm the story". What happened then was "certainly" genocide. "There is no other word for it." There is no euphemism. " Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff has called on US President Donald Trump to join Congress in the matter.
Erdogan rejects decision
The Senate resolution is not legally binding, but has great symbolic power and weight for relations between the US and Turkey. In 2016, the German Bundestag also classified the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide - which had a heavy impact on German-Turkish relations. The adoption of the resolution by the House of Representatives at the end of October had already created new tensions between the US and Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had rejected the decision in the House of Representatives as "worthless". "I turn to the American public and the rest of the world: this decision has no value, we do not recognize it," Erdogan had said.
During the First World War, Armenians were systematically persecuted and, among other things, sent on death marches into the Syrian desert. Historians speak of hundreds of thousands to 1.5 million victims. Turkey, as the successor to the Ottoman Empire, condemns the deaths of 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians during the First World War and regrets the massacres. However, classification as genocide strictly rejects the government.