Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I am proud to join with my friend and my colleague from New Jersey today in urging the Senate to take up and pass the resolution affirming U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide. From 1915 to 1923, the Ottoman Empire carried out a forced deportation of nearly 2 million Armenians, of whom 1.5 million were killed. It was an atrocious genocide. That it happened is a reality that no amount of political doublespeak can cover up.

In fact, the word ``genocide,'' which literally means the killing of an entire people, was coined by Raphael Lemkin to describe the horrific nature of the Ottoman Empire's calculated extermination of the Armenians. That is the genesis of the word ``genocide.''

As America, we must never be silent in response to atrocities. Over 100 years ago, the world sat silently as the Armenian people suffered and were systemically murdered. Many people today are still unaware of what happened. With this resolution--a bipartisan resolution--we are saying it is a policy of the United States to commemorate the Armenian genocide through official recognition and remembrance.

Let me echo what my colleague from New Jersey just said. Doing so is not incompatible with continuing to deal with Turkey as an ally. Just last week, I sat down with President Erdogan and President Trump in the oval office. Turkey is a NATO ally and an important one, but friends and allies can speak the truth, and we are not honoring America and who we stand for if we are afraid to speak the truth and willing to participate in covering it up. We have a moral duty to acknowledge what happened to 1.5 million innocent souls. It is the right thing to do, and it is my hope that the Senate will do so in a bipartisan manner.

I yield back the floor.

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