Both Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu have developed the bad habit of taking for granted continued American support for Armenian Genocide denial, Executive Director of Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) said.

"Having exported their own Article 301 gag-rule to Washington, Turkish authorities think that they can forever bully and bribe the United States into silence on this human rights issue. Thankfully, neither Erdogan nor Davutoglu - or for that matter Secretary Clinton - has a vote in the U.S. Congress. It's up to the elected representatives of the American people to reject foreign pressure, reaffirm American values, and reflect the views of U.S. citizens by passing the Armenian Genocide Resolution,” Aram Hamparian told PanARMENIAN.Net when commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement noting that the “Armenian Genocide resolution won’t be put on America’s foreign policy agenda this year.”

Earlier, Hillary Clinton met with Turkish PM Erdoğan and FM Davutoğlu in the framework of the Friends of Syria conference in Istanbul. The Turkish officials stressed “the need to stop annual submittal of Armenian Genocide resolutions to the U.S. Congress on the eve of April 24.”

According to Turkish media reports, Clinton stressed that “the issue bears sensitive character for Turkey and that such a resolution won’t be put on U.S. agenda this year.”

On March 20, U.S. Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced legislation, S.Res.399, calling upon the U.S. government to properly recognize the Armenian Genocide and to use the lessons of this atrocity to prevent future crimes against humanity.

“It is time for the United States to join the nineteen nations including Belgium, Canada, France, Italy and the European Union that have formally recognized the actions carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923 as genocide,” Senator Menendez said. “The Armenian Genocide is a historical fact and was one of the incidents upon which the Genocide Convention was predicated. Only by accurately acknowledging the crimes of the past can we ever hope to move forward in a legitimate manner and prevent such human rights crimes from happening in the future.”

“The Armenian Genocide is well-documented and formally recognized by 11 NATO allies and the European Union. This resolution accurately characterizes the events of 1915-1923 as a genocide, honors the memory of the victims, and strengthens America’s moral leadership on human rights and the prevention of mass atrocities around the world,” said a spokesman for Senator Kirk.