US President Donald Trump refrained from defining the mass killings of Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I as "genocide", which is a new change in the policy of his predecessor Joe Biden, reported Agence France-Presse.
Turkey, whose leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has established close ties with Trump, has always denied that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide and seeks to prevent any international recognition.
In the annual message issued by US presidents on the occasion of the anniversary, Trump paid tribute to "the memory of those precious lives that were taken in one of the worst catastrophes of the 20th century".
In 2021 Biden became the first president to recognize the genocide, and explicitly paid tribute to "the memory of all Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today",
"President Trump's refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide by the United States constitutes a shameful capitulation to Turkish threats," said in response Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America.
According to Yerevan between 1915 and 1916 Up to 1.5 million people died, amid the Ottoman authorities' repression of the Armenian Christian minority, which they considered pro-Russian and disloyal to the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey does not recognize these events, estimates the number of Armenian deaths at 300,000 to 500,000 people and claims that an equal number of Turks died in the unrest, after many Armenians sided with Russian forces.
Armenia and its influential diaspora have long campaigned for international recognition of the tragedy as genocide. So far, 34 countries, including the United States, France, Germany, Brazil and Russia, have officially defined the events as genocide, AFP recalls.