On the recordApril 23, 2015
Let me thank my colleagues from California for taking the time and effort to come here and to put these very important expressions of outrage into the Congressional Record. Mr. Speaker, yes, we are outraged that people today would even consider not acknowledging the fact that there was a genocide that took place 100 years ago. I am a friend of Turkey's. I believe that the Turkish people and the people of the United States need to be close. We were in the cold war, and I am grateful to their contributions to our security over the years; but this doesn't mean that we should not be totally honest with each other and with them as friends in that all of us have made mistakes. Certainly, the United States has committed errors in its past that we should agree to acknowledge. In this demonstration today, we are putting ourselves in solidarity with the families of those who were victimized 100 years ago by the Armenian genocide. We also express ourselves to our friends in Turkey that this is the time to just acknowledge that, in the past, mistakes were made and that, indeed, it is time to move on and to make sure that people today in Turkey are treated with greater respect for their rights and in continued cooperation with the United States and with other free people in the world. I thank my friend Mr. Brad Sherman, who has been a leader on this issue, for acknowledging and being here today to make sure that this gets into the Congressional Record on this very important day.
