Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian issued  a statement on White House announcement of the “Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities”, which aims to create a framework to prevent mass atrocities and genocide.

In his statement Hamparian stressed that “Armenian Americans - descendants of the still unpunished genocide that served as the blueprint for so many others that followed - welcome the announcement today of the President’s new initiative to prevent future mass atrocities.”

However, he noted that Obama’s words are undermined by his own actions.

“The Obama Administration, like too many before it, has failed to rightfully regard genocide affirmation and prevention as a moral imperative for government action, and has, instead - in flagrant disregard of our nation’s ratification of the Genocide Convention - reduced our nation’s stand against genocide to a political commodity, to be bartered away or surrendered under foreign threats.

We see this failure not only in terms of confronting ongoing genocide, but also in the Obama Administration’s complicity in denial, the last stage of genocide. Just two days before the launch of this effort, the President’s nominee to serve as ambassador to Turkey was sent before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under a strict gag-order - written in Ankara and enforced by our President - not to properly characterize the Armenian Genocide as ‘genocide’. The U.S. ambassador to Armenia nominee was placed in the same untenable position just weeks ago,” he said.