US votes sanctions against Turkey and passes resolution condemning Turkish genocide against Armenians a century ago

Murdered Armenians 1915

The US House of Representatives have voted to impose sanctions against Turkey:

October 30, 2019

CAPITOL HILL – Turkey objected Wednesday to legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives calling for sanctions against Turkish officials in connection with Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria and a measure recognizing the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said it summoned U.S. Ambassador David Satterfield after the House approved the bipartisan legislation on Tuesday.

One measure co-sponsored by Democratic House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel of New York and ranking Republican Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas would punish senior Turkish officials involved in the decision to invade northern Syria and perpetrate human rights abuses against the Kurds.

The House passed the bill by a 403-16 vote.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement called the move “incompatible with the spirit of our NATO Alliance” and said lawmakers were “carelessly legitimizing a terrorist with their rhetoric and actions.” Turkey considers the Syrian Kurds as allied with Kurdish separatists that have been battling for autonomy inside Turkey for three decades. …

House lawmakers paired the sanctions bill with a piece of legislation that has long proved to be a sore point in U.S.-Turkish relations. A resolution affirming U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide passed by a 405-11 vote, after resolutions have failed to come up for a vote in one form or another for decades.

The U.S. government has never formally recognized the murder of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 to 1923 as a genocide.

A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement rejected the bill as “an attempt to rewrite history,” as well as a “meaningless step” that is “totally null and void” in the eyes of the Turkish people and government.

“Turkey has not come to grips that this was a genocide,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. Hoyer said it was important to acknowledge genocides to ensure they never happen again. “The Turks are somehow taking this as if we are alleging that the present government or previous governments have committed to genocide. I don’t believe that’s the case,” he said.

Congressman Adam Schiff, sponsor of the legislation, told VOA’s Armenian Service that House passage of the resolution was “long overdue. And it is my hope that the passage of this resolution will bring about annual recognition of the genocide and much better education of the people in this country of the facts of that very dark chapter in human history.”

The resolution has two Republican co-sponsors — Congressman Gus Bilirakis of Florida, and Congressman Peter King of New York — but did receive some criticism during floor debate. https://www.voanews.com/usa/us-house-lawmakers-rebuke-turkey-syria-invasion

Here is more on the Armenian genocide vote:

30 October 2019

The US House of Representatives adopted a resolution on Tuesday, officially recognizing the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 as genocide.

Similar measures had been introduced in both chambers of the US Congress for decades, but they had never passed.

The historic moment comes at a time of tensions between US politicians and Turkey over its military offensive into Syria and a broad assault on Kurdish-controlled areas, following a retreat of US troops from the area that was ordered by President Donald Trump.

Armenians have called for the international community to recognize the mass killings of their people as genocide, which 30 countries done so far. https://www.dw.com/en/us-lawmakers-recognize-killing-of-armenians-as-genocide/a-51041829

30 October 2019

The US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly in favour of recognising the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One as a genocide.

The issue is highly sensitive and comes amid deteriorating US-Turkey relations.

Presidential hopeful Joe Biden said the vote honoured the memory of victims.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the “worthless” vote, which was held on Turkey’s National Day, was the “biggest insult” to Turkish people. …

The resolution passed by a vote of 405 to 11. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined her colleagues “in solemn remembrance of one of the great atrocities of the 20th Century”. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50229787

Here is some information about what happened over a century ago:

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանություն Hayots Tseghaspanutyun), also known as the Armenian Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, traditionally by Armenians, as Medz Yeghern (Armenian: Մեծ Եղեռն, “Great Crime”), was the Ottoman government’s systematic extermination of its minority Armenian subjects from their historic homeland within the territory constituting the present-day Republic of Turkey. The total number of people killed as a result has been estimated at between 1 and 1.5 million. The starting date is conventionally held to be 24 April 1915, the day Ottoman authorities rounded up and arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm on death marches leading to the Syrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre. (Armenian Genocide, Wikipedia, accessed 04/12/15)

The government of Turkey has tended to deny it was genocide, instead saying that most were killed in WWI and civil wars during that time. The Armenians strongly disagree.

Armenians still face issues. A while back, a COG member sent me the following:

My mom’s side relatives have lived in Aleppo, Syria all their lives, which has had a large thriving Eastern Orthodox Christian Armenian community for nearly a century. A number of them have left during the recent turmoil if they were able. An article in a recent daily news update on cogwriter referred to Christian persecution there. Well, the rebel groups are the ones bombing churches and persecuting those who refer to themselves as Christians (including Armenians). Two of my relatives were kidnapped by rebel forces (now released by ransom money). My relatives are upset at the so-called Arab Spring. It has destroyed the peace, the economy and their way of life, which they were happy with. The more secular Arab leaders like Assad have treated professing Christians very well for decades (though they may be harsh in other ways). The Armenians had no trouble with their religion, churches, schools, cultural activities, and speaking the language. They were highly regarded in the community. Now the rebels want to overthrow the regime and have a fanatical Moslem government, and, like you say, eventually try to establish a caliphate across the Middle East. They persecute any group calling itself Christian and are causing the disintegration of the Orthodox Christian communities.

The situation in Syria has been horrible, but hopefully, since ISIS lost its territories, some areas were improving. The latest Turkish moves into Syria, however, have negatively impacted some areas. I have been praying for those affected in Syria for some time and again ask others to also do so.

Between civil war, chemical weapons, murders, deaths, and war crimes, it is terrible what the people in Syria, Armenian or not, have had to endure. They, along with all of us, need to pray “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10, KJV).

Some prophetic information related to Armenia is in the article: The Eurasian Union, the Kings of the East, and Bible Prophecy.

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