Double Genocide Correction from US Yerevan Ambassador

Friday, March 04 2005
Turks.US

The US Ambassador to Yerevan John Evans has had to apologize twice for use of the term "genocide" about events in Armenia, once to the US Administration and once to Turkey.

Evans criticized Washington's policy last week and said that Armenian events should be called "genocide" from now on. Top level administration of US State Department reacted to this statement and made Evans issue a retraction on the Embassy's internet site. The ambassador said in the message that the term "genocide" was his own evaluation and this did not indicate the US policy, which had not changed. Evans said that he was sorry for causing a misunderstanding. But Evans hid the term 'genocide' within the message of apology saying "there is no change in the policy of the US over the Armenian genocide." The Turkish ambassador to Washington Faruk Logoglu reacted to this message and the Washington administration approved Turkey's demand and made Evans correct the message of apology. Logoglu reminded the US State Department that the US does not recognize the Armenian genocide, but the term was used in the message of apology of the US Yerevan Ambassador. Logoglu noted that a term that is not accepted by USA could not be used in a statement of policy.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.