Obama’s top advisers sorry they did not recognize Armenian Genocide

Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power, key foreign policy advisers to former US President Barack Obama, have apologized for not recognizing what has happened to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 100 years ago as genocide – a topic that would deteriorate the American-Turkish relations, Politico reports.

“It was a mistake. We should have recognized the Armenian Genocide”, Ben Rhodes said.

“I’m sorry added”, Samantha Power, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, said. “I’m sorry that we disappointed so many Armenian Americans”.

The two shared their regrets earlier this week in response to an audience question during an episode of Pod Save the World, a podcast hosted by Tommy Vietor, another former Obama aide. According to Politico, their statements were unusually frank given the sensitivity of an issue that has bedeviled US presidents for years.

“Every year there was a reason not to. Turkey was vital to some issue that we were dealing with, or there was some dialogue between Turkey and the Armenian government about the past. Frankly, here’s the lesson, I think, going forward: Get it done the first year, you know, because if you don’t it gets harder every year in a way,” Rhodes said.

Samantha Power said that the US administration was “played a little bit” by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and others invested in delaying the Armenian Genocide recognition.

Erdogan was well-attuned to the US political mood and calendar, and he and others would hold out the possibility that by uttering the word “genocide” Obama might derail ongoing attempts at rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia.

According to her, Obama always thought he could meet a campaign promise and deliver for the Armenian Americans to whom he has made this promise. “And then what? What if it sets back this thing [the diplomatic dialogue] that could be much more promising?’ I think he really believed that it could have that perverse effect, because he was told that by people who studied the region and knew the region”, she added.

Politico writes that Armenian Americans were bitterly disappointed in Obama’s failure to fulfill his campaign promise. The comments by Rhodes and Power did little to appease community leaders who felt it was too little, too late.

“The time for anyone to get this issue right is when they’re in office”, Aram Suren Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said, adding that there’s another person his community would like to hear from. “Obama should explain why he didn’t honor his pledge. And I think he owes us an apology—he owes the American people an apology”, Hamparian said.

In her turn Samantha Power stated: “Just tell the truth. It’s safer in the long run”.