US House recognises Armenian 'genocide', despite Turkish rebuke

The US House of Representatives has voted in favour of recognising the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as an act of "genocide".

Armenian Australians march in Sydney. The US House of Representatives has recognised the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings as the "Armenian genocide”.

Armenian Australians march in Sydney. The US House of Representatives has recognised the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings as the "Armenian genocide”. Source: AAP

The US House of Representatives has passed a resolution officially recognising the Armenian "genocide," a symbolic but unprecedented move that angered Turkey amid already-heightened tensions with Washington.

Cheers and applause erupted when the chamber voted 405 to 11 in support of the measure "affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide," a first for the US Congress, where similar measures with such direct language have been introduced for decades but never passed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was honoured to join her colleagues "in solemn remembrance of one of the great atrocities of the 20th century: the systematic murder of more than 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children by the Ottoman Empire”.

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By Stergos Kastelloriou
Source: AFP, SBS

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