U.S. Congressman David N. Cicilline (D-RI), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today called on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting the United States, to formally acknowledge and apologize for the Armenian Genocide. Cicilline issued the following statement:
“Two million Armenian men, women and children living under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire were systematically slaughtered or forced to leave their homeland. There is no doubt that this heinous, organized assault on the Armenian people constituted the first genocide of the 20th century. And yet, even today, nearly a hundred years later, the Turkish government continues to ignore the preponderance of evidence and deny a historical reality.”
“As Prime Minister Erdogan works to improve his country’s standing in the Middle East, and develop a stronger relationship with the United States, he should take this opportunity to acknowledge the atrocities that occurred once and for all, and issue a formal apology to the survivors and the descendants of the victims. His failure to do so would serve only to deepen an indelible stain on the history of his nation.”
