Official representative of State Department Mark Toner commented on the reference to the Armenian Genocide made by U.S. Ambassador to UN Samantha Power.

Ambassador Power gave the remarks in the context of honoring Elie Wiesel’s lifelong efforts to raise awareness about the Holocaust and to convince others to stand up in the face of these kinds of injustices and mass atrocities.

“And they certainly didn’t – her remarks didn’t reflect any kind of shift in the Administration’s policy,” Toner said during the Tuesday briefing.

Asked why the Administration is not using the term genocide, Toner said: “This President, this Administration, as have past administrations, have repeatedly mourned and acknowledged that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire. And we’ve also called for a full and frank acknowledgement of the facts of what happened around those deaths. And that remains our policy. I don’t want to get into terminology or how we referred to it. We acknowledged that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred, as I said, and we want to see a full historical accounting of those events.”

However, State Department representative did not answer the question whether relations with Turkey stop this administration from saying the word genocide.