Bob Menendez, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has begun collecting signatures for a bipartisan letter addressed to President Joe Biden, calling on him to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Referring to Menendez’s initiative, an Ahval News analyst drew comparisons between the failure of a resolution that reached the US Senate last year and the likely success of this year’s initiative. “There are a number of reasons to believe that this year the US president may officially recognize what was done to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as genocide,” the article’s author wrote.
As the author noted, in recent years there is a global consensus: the governing bodies of 32 countries, including the US, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Brazil, have recognized the Genocide.
“Steps toward the subsequent recognition of the Armenian Genocide, as well as any other action directed against the Turkish government, have gained wide traction in Western capitals in recent years, conditioned by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government’s policy of alienation in the outside world and internal anti-democratic manifestations,” the author emphasized.
“When Erdogan’s pro-democracy image disappeared and the autocratic beast was revealed, the president one by one lost his friends in Washington. The problems Erdogan had during the Trump administration were nothing and could not harm his interests,” the article’s author wrote, and reminded that Biden had promised during his election campaign to “support a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide.”
The source noted that as a person who held the office of vice president for 8 years, he is aware that if he breaks his promise, pressure will be exerted on him by Congress, particularly by Senator Menendez, whose support Biden needs to succeed in foreign policy.
The source also stressed that throughout his presidency, as well as after being elected to the presidency, Biden has not once had a conversation with Erdogan.
“While Erdogan’s relations with the US government are at a low level, this time the US president seems to have no reason to sever ties with an ally like Erdogan against the backdrop of recognition of the Armenian Genocide,” the periodical concluded.
