President Biden Recognizes Atrocities Against Armenians As Genocide

The Armenian Missionary Association of America welcomes President Biden’s statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed. Ecclesiastes 3:17

Marking the 106th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks, US President Joe Biden, following his campaign promise, officially issued a statement on April 24, 2021, recognizing the atrocities and calling the massacres of one and a half million Armenians as Genocide. Indeed, President Biden’s statement complements the recognition by the US House of Representatives and Senate of the Armenian Genocide in the fall of 2019.

The crime of genocide does not adhere to any statute of limitations. With this acknowledgment, we have now entered a new phase of struggle towards our quest for justice, be it for the crime committed a century or a year ago. We thank President Biden for his courageous moral stance on the Armenian Genocide and trust that God will deliver justice for the crime of the ‘murder of a nation’.

We invite all other nations who have not yet recognized the Armenian Genocide to step up on the moral ladder, follow the example of President Biden and courageously call the annihilation of one and half million Armenians during World war I; the first Genocide of the twentieth century.

Thank you President Biden for your courage and superb moral standard.

Statement by President Joe Biden on Armenian Remembrance Day
April 24, 2021

Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination. We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.

Of those who survived, most were forced to find new homes and new lives around the world, including in the United States. With strength and resilience, the Armenian people survived and rebuilt their community. Over the decades Armenian immigrants have enriched the United States in countless ways, but they have never forgotten the tragic history that brought so many of their ancestors to our shores. We honor their story. We see that pain. We affirm the history. We do this not to cast blame but to ensure that what happened is never repeated.

Today, as we mourn what was lost, let us also turn our eyes to the future—toward the world that we wish to build for our children. A world unstained by the daily evils of bigotry and intolerance, where human rights are respected, and where all people are able to pursue their lives in dignity and security. Let us renew our shared resolve to prevent future atrocities from occurring anywhere in the world. And let us pursue healing and reconciliation for all the people of the world.

The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today.