Armenia Ecstatic, Turkey Enraged after Senate Resolution’s Overwhelming Passage

The reactions came as no surprise: the Armenian Foreign Ministry called it an act of “profound significance” as it thanked U.S. Senators for their 405 to 11 vote to recognize the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks between 1915 – 1923 as a “genocide.” The Turks, however, while admitting that “about 300,000” Armenians died, bitterly denounced the passage of the non-binding Senate resolution as “a meaningless political step.” Other attempts to pass such resolutions have been tried, but Tuesday’s vote was the first to succeed – most believing its passage was a way for American lawmakers to vent their disapproval of the Turks’ assault on the Kurds – and a not insignificant token of the embarrassment felt when President Trump turned the nation’s back on its loyal allies and allowed President Erdogan’s forces to kill an unknown number of Kurds. The Ministry praised the Senators’ “overwhelming commitment to truth, justice, humanity and solidarity, and to universal values of human rights.”