House Passes Resolution Declaring WWI Slaughter of 1.5 Million Armenians a ‘Genocide’

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution Tuesday calling the Ottoman Empire’s World War I-era slaughter of 1.5 million Armenian Christians a “genocide” – a historic vote that marked the first time in more than three decades that either body of Congress has used the term.

Turkey, which was formed out of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, acknowledges atrocities took place but has pushed back on the use of the word “genocide,” arguing they weren’t systematic. Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire either were killed or forced to flee. 

Although the mass killings took place a century ago, leaders from both parties – including former Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton – often have blocked Congress from using the term because of the historically close relationship between the U.S. and Turkey.

But that tight relationship ended when Turkey invaded Syria in recent weeks. 

It is sometimes called the “forgotten Holocaust” and was depicted in the film The Promise. 

The resolution passed, 405-11. It says the genocide involved the “killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923” and that the U.S. provided relief to the “Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians.” 

Further, the resolution says, Congress rejects…