Obama avoids using "genocide" : Obama describes 1915 events as 'Meds Yeghern'.

President Barack Obama described the events of 1915 involving Armenians within the Ottoman Empire as "Meds Yeghern," an Armenian term meaning "great calamity" in a statement released Friday.

In using the term in his final months as the president, Obama again refrained, as he did in previous years, from describing the events as "genocide", which he did during his first presidential campaign.

"Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century -- the Armenian Meds Yeghern -- when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire," Obama said.

He stated that the U.S. stood with the Armenian people throughout the world "in recalling the horror of the Meds Yeghern" and reaffirmed his country’s ongoing commitment to a "democratic, peaceful, and prosperous Armenia.

• "I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed," Obama said.

The president added that the U.S. continued to welcome the views of Turkish and Armenian historians and Pope Francis, "who have sought to shed new light into the darkness of the past".

Obama also expressed appreciation to Armenians for welcoming nearly 17,000 Syrian refugees into their country....
 [aa.com.tr]
22/4/16
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• Statement by the President on Armenian Remembrance Day...

Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century—the Armenian Meds Yeghern—when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire.

As we honor the memory of those who suffered during the dark days beginning in 1915—and commit to learn from this tragedy so it may never be repeated—we also pay tribute to those who sought to come to their aid.  One such individual was U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who voiced alarm both within the U.S. government and with Ottoman leaders in an attempt to halt the violence.  Voices like Morgenthau’s continue to be essential to the mission of atrocity prevention, and his legacy shaped the later work of human rights champions such as Raphael Lemkin, who helped bring about the first United Nations human rights treaty.............https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/22/statement-president-armenian-remembrance-day
22/4/16
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Related:
2015

• White House avoids calling Armenian deaths ‘genocide’ 

2014:

• Obama avoids using ‘genocide,’ opting for ‘Meds Yeghern’ in April 24 commemoration