TheArmenite

Glad to be here.

In fact, the United States is on record describing it as genocide several times. The House of Representatives recognized it twice on the House floor, once in 1975 and once in 1984. http://anca.org/genocide_resource/recognition.php#house_1975

Additionally, President Ronald Reagan stated, ""Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it — and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples — the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten."

There are of course several resolutions recognizing it in several committees in the US Congress.

Turkey's denial of the Genocide is complex but mostly comes down to the fact that the country itself is built upon the ashes of the Genocide. Because the forefathers of the Turkish Republic, some of whom participated in the Genocide, denied it in the early days, it has become increasingly difficult - though no less justified - to admit to the atrocities and the role they played in establishing the country that exists today.

Ethnicity and race played the greatest role in the Turkish decision to eradicate the Armenian population. Although previously there were clear differences among Ottoman "millets," as they were called, according to religion, the rise to power of the secular, nationalistic Committee of Union and Progress (a.k.a. Young Turks) shifted the basis of identity from a religious to ethnic/racial one.

The Genocide was meant to purify and cleanse the land of non-Turks.

The religious factor was nevertheless prominent, as recorded by survivors and others: Armenians were often referred to as "gyavur," which is a derogatory term meaning "infidel."

I wouldn't call what happened in Kessab a genocide. Rather, I believe it was ethnic cleansing. The entire population of an Armenian town was removed by an Islamist military operation supported by Turkey. Given how heavily militarized Turkey is generally, how sensitive they are in their southeastern region, and how they have had a civil war raging on their border for several years, it's hard for me to believe that Turkey did not know that a military operation being launched from its side of the border was going to have that effect on the Armenian-populated town. Given Turkey's track record of working to obliterate every remnant proving an Armenian presence within its own modern borders, it isn't far-fetched to believe that they were complicit with this operation in the same vein.

What a wonderful discovery.

You can start by reading The Armenite!

Otherwise, I would recommend reading:

History

Literature

Armenian-American Literature

Artsakh War

Genocide

Finally, you should look into Armenian organizations in your area.

Thanks for the question.

It's hard to say what percentage of Armenians lived in current Republic of Armenia but I can tell you that it was small. Although most villages in the current republic were populated by Armenians then, the vast majority of Armenians lived in western Armenia, which is where the bulk of the Genocide took place, in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), Tiflis (Tblisi today), and Baku.

Christianity certainly played a role; it was, after all, only Christians (Greeks, Assyrians, and others) who were subject to wholesale massacre. Nevertheless, the primary discernible motivation was to cleanse Turkey of ethnically/racially different Armenians.

As with any genocide or massacre, officials did indeed give reasons for why they were destroying civilian populations. It was, and is, curious that Turks use that line about Armenians colluding with the Russians given that Armenians were, for better or for worse, known as millet-i sadika, which translates to the "loyal millet."