President Joe Biden on Saturday plans to follow through on a campaign pledge to formally recognise that atrocities committed against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago in modern-day Turkey were genocide, according to US officials familiar with the President's deliberations.
Biden spoke to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday in anticipation of his plan, in a presidential proclamation to mark Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, to use the term genocide to describe
the killings and deportations of hundreds of thousands of Armenians. US presidents for decades have acknowledged Remembrance Day to mark the events of 1915 to 1923 but have avoided using the term “genocide” to sidestep alienating Turkey.
The US and Turkish governments, in separate statements following Friday's call, made no mention of the American plan to recognise the Armenian genocide.
The White House said Biden told Erdogan he wants to improve the two countries' relationship and find “effective management of disagreements.”
The two also agreed to hold a bilateral meeting at the NATO summit in Brussels in June.
Biden pledged as a candidate to recognise the massacre of Armenians as genocide, arguing that “silence is complicity.” Biden wanted to speak with Erdogan before making the formal recognition, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe Biden's deliberations and plans.
Friday's call between the two leaders was their first since Biden took office more than three months ago. The delay had become a worrying sign in Ankara; Erdogan had good rapport with former President Donald Trump and had been hoping for a reset despite past friction with Biden.
Erdogan on Friday reiterated his long-running claims that the US is supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria who are affiliated with the Iraq-based Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK. In recent years, Turkey has launched military operations against PKK enclaves in northern Iraq and against US-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. The State Department has designated the PKK a terrorist organisation but has argued with Turkey over the group's ties to the Syrian Kurds.
Erdogan also raised concerns about the presence in the US of cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed 2016 coup attempt, according to the Turkish government statement. Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since the late 1990s, denies involvement in the coup.