The Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) and coalition partners slammed Turkish President Erdogan and his government’s renewed attempts to deny the veracity of genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government against the indigenous Christian Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian nations from 1915-1923, whereby over 3 million innocent people were massacred or deported. Republic of Turkey, the legal heir to the Ottoman Empire and its Turkic proxy Azerbaijan, are the only two countries to actively deny this crime against all of humanity.

On June 16, 2020 the Directorate of Communications of the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey issued a statement sharing details from a five-hour closed-door meeting of the High Advisory Board chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, where they discussed the next steps of Ankara’s century-old genocide denial policy.

“The recent 5-hour closed door meeting chaired by President Erdogan on a new strategy to deny the Armenian Genocide firstly speaks to the overwhelming success our community and our partners have been able to achieve worldwide, with the most recent addition of the unanimous passage of genocide affirmation resolutions by both chambers of U.S. Congress,” remarked ANCA-WR Chair Nora Hovsepian, Esq. “This also highlights the importance of our work ahead aimed at rejecting denialism as well as unequivocally affirming the historical truth and seeking full justice for this crime.”

The following national organizations joined the ANCA Western Region in endorsing the statement, immediately following the reports emerging of the infamous meeting in Ankara:

1. A Demand For Action
2. American Hellenic Council
3. Assyrian American Association of Southern California
4. Assyrian Genocide and Research (SEYFO Center)
5. Genocide Watch
6. Greek Genocide Resource Center
7. Hellenic American Leadership Council
8. In Defense of Christians
9. Israeli-American Civic Action Network
10. Israeli-American Civic Education Institute
11. Jewish World Watch
12. Philos Project
13. Together We Remember

Full text of the statement is provided below:

The first modern case of genocide perpetrated against the indigenous Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian nations was a centrally planned and systematically executed deportation and murder of over 3 million innocent people by the Ottoman Turkish Government from 1915 to 1923. The Armenian Genocide is fully documented in the U.S. archives and through an overwhelming body of first-hand, governmental, and diplomatic evidence as well as thousands of real-time mainstream media reports. Aside from Turkey and its Turkic ally Azerbaijan, no other country actively denies the veracity of this international crime against humanity.

Despite overwhelming documentation by historians and condemnation by over 30 countries worldwide, an unrepentant Turkey seeks to both enforce an international gag-rule against truthful affirmation of the Armenian Genocide and to obstruct a just international resolution of this still unpunished crime.

Recognizing that silence and denial of genocide creates a veil of impunity by which states avoid responsibility for not only their historic crimes, but contemporary human rights abuses, we condemn in the strongest possible terms the continued genocide denial policy by the Turkish government and its proxies, calling on all who are committed to upholding and ensuring the protection of universal human rights to fight against genocide denial and commit to exposing genocide, confronting denialism wherever it occurs, deny a public platform for hate, and empower communities that have experienced or are suffering genocide.

Understanding that denial is the final stage of genocide, enforcing the erasure of a peoples’ history and suffering, we call on people of good conscience to bring awareness to the plight of the victims of genocide both past and present, to hold accountable those who seek to distort historical truth, and ensure that never again will the world watch on in silence while genocide is perpetrated.  

The Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region is the largest and most influential nonpartisan Armenian-American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States. Working in coordination with a network of offices, chapters, and supporters throughout the Western United States and affiliated organizations around the country, the ANCA-WR advances the concerns of the Armenian-American community on a broad range of issues in pursuit of the Armenian Cause.