White House omits the word ‘genocide’ on 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

On Thursday, the 110th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the White House issued a statement commemorating the event — but declined to use the word ‘genocide’ — an omission that was quickly noticed and condemned by Armenian media and advocacy groups.

‘Today we commemorate the Meds Yeghern, and honor the memories of those wonderful souls who suffered in one of the worst disasters of the 20th Century’, the White House’s statement read.

‘Beginning in 1915, 1.5 million Armenians were exiled and marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. On this Day of Remembrance, we again join the great Armenian community in America, and around the world, in mourning the many lives that were lost’, the White House said.

The Armenian phrase Meds Yeghern, which means ‘great crime’, was often how the Armenian Genocide was referred to by US politicians who likely wanted to avoid stating the word genocide directly.

In 2021, former President Joe Biden became the first US president to use the word genocide when referring to the massacres by the Ottoman Empire that resulted in the deaths of some 1.5 million Armenians.

Prior to that, former President Barack Obama had used the word genocide to describe the killings — before he became president — but then backed away when he took office, instead opting to use the term Meds Yeghern.

Biden’s official recognition of the Armenian Genocide followed twin votes by the Senate and House of Representatives in 2019, during Trump’s first term.

After the Senate voted to recognise the genocide, Trump’s State Department issued a statement saying that the administration’s position on the matter had ‘not changed’, and instead said the killings were ‘one of the worst mass atrocities’.

When asked why the word was omitted, National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt said, ‘these horrific events were one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century [...] That is why the US government acknowledges that 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire’.

At the same time, other top officials — such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio — also refrained from using the word and echoed the White House’s message.

The US Embassy in Armenia also did not use the word genocide in its message commemorating the anniversary.

The message was noticeably different from that of a year ago, when Biden was president.

There was widespread criticism of the White House’s statement, as well as the glaringly clear discrepancy between the 2024 and 2025 messages from the embassy, including from influential far-right influencers within the Republican Party. Some Republican politicians also opted to use the word.

Congressperson Nancy Pelosi, who led the Democratic party in the House when Congress voted to recognise the genocide in 2019, explicitly said the vote was the result of Democratic rule.

Others, including the prominent US-based Armenia lobbyist organisation, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), also theorised that Trump had ‘retreated from US remembrance of the Armenian Genocide — under foreign pressure from the Turkish government’.

While there was no evidence that the apparent change in linguistic policy was the result of influence from Turkey, or that the omission was a deliberate policy at all, some Turkish media outlets described it as a ‘friendly gesture’ from the Trump administration.

Turkey has long denied that the Armenian Genocide occurred, and has exerted significant effort to lobby other countries from officially recognising it. The issue has remained a major sticking point in the long process of normalisation between Armenia and Turkey.

In its own statement on Thursday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said ‘we categorically reject the statements on the events of 1915, made in violation of historical facts and international law’.

‘We stress that the efforts of radical circles to draw animosity from history should not be encouraged and reiterate our call to support the ongoing normalisation process between Turkey and Armenia’.

Separately, the Turkish Defence Ministry opted to make a different kind of statement on Thursday, saying ‘We remember with mercy the defenceless and innocent Turks who were brutally massacred by Armenians during the events of 1915’.

The ministry was referring to a narrative often promoted by Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan — the three countries that openly deny the genocide happened — that ethnic Armenians revolted against the Ottoman Empire, and that the killings that followed were part of a internecine conflict or a legitimate state response, not a genocide.

The theories are not widely accepted by historiography or academia outside of the three countries that deny the genocide happened.

Conflicting messaging on Armenian Genocide as Armenia commemorates 110th anniversary

The Ottoman Empire’s early 20th century genocide resulted in the mass killings of nearly 1.5 million Armenians.

OC MediaYousef Bardouka