2020 candidates line up behind Armenian genocide bill as US-Turkey relations plummet

As Turkey continues to lose clout in Washington amid strained bilateral ties, Armenian-American advocacy groups are hopeful this will be the year the United States finally recognizes the World War I era massacre of more than 1 million mostly Christian Armenians as a genocide, Al-Monitor writes.

More than 100 lawmakers in the House and Senate have signed on to legislation recognizing the genocide since its introduction earlier this month, in line with past efforts. And President Donald Trump, whose evangelical base supports the move, is expected to issue a statement marking the anniversary of the massacre on April 24.

“If either [the House or the Senate] measures were to come before their respective committees or the floor, it’s hard to see how in this environment anyone’s going to step forward to defend Ankara’s denial of the Armenian genocide,” said Aram Hamparian, the executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.

At least two other advocacy groups — the Armenian Assembly of America and In Defense of Christians — have also lobbied Congress to pass the resolution in the past. Lobbyists for Turkey and pro-Turkey groups in Washington have long advocated against such a move, warning that it would poison bilateral relations.

“The Armenian Diaspora claim of genocide is a one-sided assessment of the inter-communal war between Ottoman Armenians and Ottoman Muslims in 1915, and it prejudices Turkish and Armenian rapprochement,” the Turkish Coalition of America states on its website.

Turkey denies the wartime deaths amount to a genocide and has made clear that US-Turkey relations would further deteriorate if the United States went ahead with a genocide statement. After President Emmanuel Macron of France declared April 24 to be a national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide in February, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out and said France should instead own up to its colonial-era atrocities.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, introduced the nonbinding resolution in the upper chamber earlier this month, just before lawmakers left town for the April recess. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., introduced similar legislation in the lower chamber around the same time.

The Senate bill boasts 15 bipartisan cosponsors, while another 89 lawmakers have signed on to the House resolution. Several 2020 presidential candidates have signed on to the bills, as they have in previous years.