HistoryofTruth.com - Armenian Allegations

The head of the largest and most radical Armenian-American group has urged Armenians throughout the world to reject a historic reconciliation process between Ankara and Yerevan, saying the deal would greatly hurt efforts for the recognition of what he termed the “Armenian genocide.”

The Armenians have “a choice to move forward. A choice, very simply, between survival and surrender,” said Ken Hachikian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, or ANCA, before a largely Armenian audience in Pasadena, California, on Thursday.

Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed a set of protocols Oct. 10 under which Ankara and Yerevan have planned to establish normal diplomatic relations and reopen their land border. The deal, if ratified by the respective countries' parliaments, would effectively end decades of hostile relations.

But Armenian-Americans are focusing solely on winning formal U.S. recognition of the World War I-era killings of their kinsmen in the Ottoman Empire as “genocide.”

“The tavern keepers of our day argue that the path they advocate [the Ankara-Yerevan normalization process] will lead to peace and prosperity, when, in reality, it only defers the day when our nation will pay the full price for surrender,” Hachikian said.

Casting doubt on ’genocide’ “They would have us accept — under foreign pressure — the ‘protocols' being forced upon the Armenian nation, even though they clearly threaten Armenia's security, abandon the rights of all Armenians, and cast doubt on the Armenian genocide,” he said.

“They would have us reduce the Armenian genocide from a crime against all humanity — one that must be recognized by the American government and resolved truthfully and justly by the international community and, of course, by Turkey — to a simple bilateral dispute to be negotiated between states, states of vastly unequal power,” Hachikian said.

He said that the world’s Armenians 'm ust reject retreat. Survival, not surrender: There is no other choice,” he said.

On the occasion of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s upcoming visit to Washington, the ANCA launched a fresh public campaign to obtain U.S. recognition of the genocide earlier this week.

Erdoğan and U. S. President Barack Obama are scheduled to meet at the White House on Dec. 7. The Obama administration staunchly supports the Ankara-Yerevan normalization process.