To this day, the Armenian genocide is rarely talked about in international discourse. As of 2017, only the governments and parliaments of 29 countries, have recognized the events as a genocide. Turkey acknowledges the genocide only as a massacre, or conversely a wartime conflict and many Turkish citizens simply do not acknowledge it at all.

Turkey also reports the death toll much lower than 1.5 million—claiming only 300,000 Armenian lives were lost during the period that the genocide took place. President Erdogan of Turkey calls for “healing all wounds” between Turkey and Armenia, but it is difficult to achieve when his official stance is that Armenia is using the genocide as an excuse for “blackmail” to retrieve reparations and their ancestral homeland.

The United States and the Armenian Genocide

During the Armenian Genocide, U.S. missionaries played a crucial role in helping save orphans and victims of violence. Never officially at war with Turkey, the US maintained a diplomatic presence in Turkey during the genocide. Ambassador Morgenthau and other diplomats were present during the events and were integral in documenting the atrocities.

In 1916, the United States Congress created the Near East Relief organization (currently known as the Near East Foundation) in response to the atrocities in 1915. The Near East Relief Organization raised the equivalent of over $2 Billion (in contemporary dollars) to help survivors of the Genocide. “Remember the starving Armenians”, a charitable rallying call, became a popular and well known slogan throughout America.

The United States first officially recognized the genocide in 1951, but due to a combination of diplomatic pressure, geopolitical demands and international economic interests, the U.S. Government has become complicit in promulgating the denial of this crime for the last three decades.