But the post was quickly removed, with a Vance spokesperson blaming an employee.
“This is a staff-managed account that exists primarily to share photos and videos of the Vice President’s activities,” they said. “For the Vice President’s views on the substance of the question, I refer you to the comments he made earlier on the stand in response to the Assembly’s question.”
This was in reference to Vance’s comments to reporters about the memorial visit, which were published by an official White House account. “I am the first vice president to ever visit Armenia. They asked us to visit the site… I wanted to go and pay my respects.”
This position has been held ever since It has been deleted also.
Alex Galitsky, Policy Director at the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reaction“This is a shameless denial of genocide. An insult to the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide – and an insult to a community that has fought tirelessly for decades to ensure recognition of this crime.”
Historians widely agree that the Ottoman Empire’s systematic killings and deportations of majority Christian Armenians during World War I constituted one of the worst genocides of the 20th century. According to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
There were approximately 1.5 million Armenians living in the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. At least 664,000 and perhaps as many as 1.2 million Armenians died during the genocide, either in massacres and individual killings, or from systematic mistreatment, exposure, and starvation.
But the Turkish government continues to do so He strongly denied it Genocide committed by the former state continues to this day. Given Türkiye’s status as a NATO ally, US presidents have refused for more than half a century to describe the historic crime as “genocide.”
This began to change in 2019, when Congress passed a historic resolution finally recognizing the genocide more than a century after it began. In 2021, then-President Joe Biden became the first US president to officially recognize genocide without ambiguity.
But in April 2025, after President Donald Trump returned to office, he… Rolled This acknowledgment referred to the mass killing as a “major catastrophe” and “one of the worst disasters of the twentieth century” while evading the term “genocide.”
Julien Zarifian, professor of United States history at the University of Poitiers in France, books “Trump’s retreat appears to make recognition of genocide taboo not just in the White House, but in the entire executive branch.”
A return to denial would bring the United States back on side not only with Turkey, but also with Azerbaijan, with which Armenia has been locked in a conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region for decades.
In 2023, more than 100,000 Armenians – almost the entire population – had been murdered. They had to flee Lands in what was described As ethnic cleansing carried out by Azerbaijan, which occupied large parts of the region.
While the United States remained officially neutral in the conflict, it provided assistance Hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid to Azerbaijan under presidents of both parties, which critics say has encouraged Azerbaijan to act more aggressively. Azerbaijan is particularly stable With Türkiye’s support In the conflict, as well as the main ally of the United States Israel.
Vance’s visit to Armenia was the first stop on a tour that continued to Azerbaijan, where he met with its leaders to discuss ending the conflict and settling the conflict. Support the agreement This would give the United States greater access to natural resources in the region.
Last August, Trump splurge A “peace agreement” was brokered between the two countries, but Azerbaijan did not sign anything, but only agreed to further talks.
One of the provisions of the deal pushed by the Trump administration is Armenia will go down Any legal claims against Azerbaijan regarding its human rights violations Security only Analysts David J. Simon and Katherine Hemmer He said “Thus depriving the 150,000 victims of Nagorno-Karabakh of justice.”
During a summit with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev Vance Put on the flattery“Other than President Trump, the only leader in the world who has really good relations with both the Turks and the Israelis is President Aliyev,” he said. “That means firstly, the food must be really good here, or secondly, it must be really magical. I can confirm that it is very magical.”
Jeff Eskagian, ANCA’s advocacy director, responded: “Vance thinks Aliyev is truly charming. Especially when he commits war crimes, rigs his elections, or ethnically cleanses an entire population.”
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