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Opinion
Bobby Ghosh

Erdogan Should Recognize the Armenian Genocide

It’s the right thing to do—and a smart political move to diffuse a weapon often brandished against Turkey.

Time to call it what it was.

Time to call it what it was.

Source: STR/AFP
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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will arrive at the White House today still smarting from U.S. House of Representatives’ recent overwhelming vote to recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915. He has called it “the biggest insult to our people,” and apparently even considered canceling his trip to Washington in protest.

This is consistent with the vituperative response of Turkish leaders to previous instances when this dark chapter of their nation’s history has been invoked by foreign governments or parliaments. Their reflexive outrage is both wrongheaded and self-defeating. Congress could hardly have expected the genocide resolution to deliver more than a rap on Erdogan’s knuckles. His overreaction gives the impression they landed a haymaker.