On April 27, three days after Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day, Vice President Joe Biden addressed Turkish and Azeri donors at a campaign fundraiser in Washington, raising more than $500,000, The Armenian Weekly reports.

The fundraiser came on the heels of President Obama’s April 24 statement, in which the President once again failed to properly acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, resorting to euphemisms and the Armenian term Meds Yeghern (Great Catastrophe) instead.

“We’re looking for Turkish leadership in the rest of that entire region,” Biden declared. “It’s a model as to how you can have an Islamic population, an Islamic state and a democracy, something the rest of the region is groping to figure out how to do,” he said.

According to The Hill, tickets for the event cost $2,500 a piece and went to the Democratic National Committee and President Obama’s reelection campaign. More than 200 members of the Turkish and Azerbaijani communities were in attendance.