United States / Armenian Genocide

Obama's Approach to Affirming the Genocide Takes Things Further Than Any Other President Has
By Peter Balakian
ArmenianWeekly.com, May 6, 2010
"[...] If at this moment in U.S.-Turkish relations the State Department does not have the ethical courage to stand up to Turkey on the Armenian Genocide, Obama has taken a step forward in affirming it as president. In the future it could not be more appropriate for Obama, a former law professor, to note that Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who created the word 'genocide' in 1943, was compelled to pursue the legal concept of genocide as an international crime on the basis of what happened to the Armenians in 1915. ... Many of us in the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) and the human rights community hope that Obama will openly use the term Armenian Genocide that Raphael Lemkin first did when he coined it in the 1940's. With Obama, in his way, having taken a significant step toward a full acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide, there is potential for a new atmosphere in this country in which Turkish denial and coercion are no longer tolerated."