Chris Smith: “It is my understanding that there are no further speakers other than the chairman, and I would like to close. Mr.…”

“It is my understanding that there are no further speakers other than the chairman, and I would like to close. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. As I mentioned earlier, the Encyclopedia of the Armenian Genocide states: During the march many Armenians were killed indiscriminately by the Ottoman forces, which left a trail of corpses along the route of the march. To break the will of the marchers, they used swords, resulting in great bloodshed. Marchers who survived these attacks faced starvation, as no provisions whatsoever were made. Many elderly and infirm marchers died in this way during the march. This significantly reduced numbers of marchers who, upon finally making it into the Syrian desert, were put into concentration camps and then released into the scorching desert with no food or water and to a certain death. Mr. Speaker, despite having ratified the Genocide Convention back in 1950, the Turkish Government has waged an amazingly deceitful campaign of denial and has done so over the course of decades using a variety of means to bully, intimidate, and punish Turkish citizens who dare to acknowledge the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1915. Ankara also seeks to intimidate nations.…”