According to a December 6 Washington Post news item, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power referred to the Armenians as a people who face genocide denial.

Power made the reference in a speech last week hailing the work of Holocaust survivor and Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel.

Kurtis Cooper, Power’s spokesman, said the genocide reference came in the context of honoring Wiesel’s life and were meant to “convince others to stand up, rather than stand by, in the face of systemic injustice, mass atrocities and genocide like the one he was forced to endure.” He said they don’t reflect a change in administration policy.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said there has been no change in U.S. policy.

“The president and other senior administration officials have repeatedly mourned and acknowledged as historical fact that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman Empire, and stated that a full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests,” Toner said.

Photo: Lee Jin-man/Associated Press