PanARMENIAN.Net - Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Robert Menendez (D-NJ) cited the refusal of U.S. Ambassador to Turkey nominee David Michael Satterfield to properly characterize the Armenian Genocide as an important reason to pass pending Senate and House Armenian Genocide legislation, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
S.Res.150 and H.Res.296 would – as a matter of U.S. national policy – recognize the Armenian Genocide, reject the denial of this crime, and encourage Armenian Genocide education in public schools.
In an exchange during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing for Ambassador-designate Satterfield last week, Sen. Menendez asked the nominee if he characterizes the 1915-1923 Armenian atrocities as ‘genocide.’ Satterfield, falling back on President Trump’s April 24th statements, stopped short of properly referencing the crime.
“This is an artful dance that we do as a nation in which we do not recognize the historical fact which even the U.S. Holocaust Museum, which is a quasi-governmental entity, acknowledges the facts of the Armenian Genocide but we are incapable of mouthing the comments of an Armenian Genocide,” stated Menendez. “We can not ultimately move to the future, we can not recognize the past as...
