After April 24: Where Now for Armenia, Turkey, and the United States?

Read Tom De Waal's Reddit AMA from April 30th, 2015.

For a generation, the issue of the Armenian Genocide has played a role in U.S. domestic politics and has overshadowed U.S.-Turkish relations. On April 24 this year, competing centennial ceremonies in Yerevan of the 1915 Genocide, and in Turkey of the Battle of Gallipoli, once again highlighted the issue on the global stage. The stakes were high: U.S. President Barack Obama declined to use the word “genocide” in his highly anticipated statement on the centenary, while Turkey launched into preparations for an important general election at home.

Where are Armenian-Turkish relations now? What comes next for Armenian diaspora politics? And how will this issue continue to affect Turkey’s relationship with the United States?

Henri Barkey

Henri J. Barkey is the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen professor at Lehigh University. He served as a member of the U.S. State Department policy planning staff working primarily on issues related to the Middle East, the Eastern Mediterranean, and intelligence from 1998 to 2000.

Emil Sanamyan

Emil Sanamyan was until recently the Washington editor for the Armenian Reporter. From 2000 until 2006, he was a research officer at the Armenian Assembly of America, and from 1998 to 2000 he worked in the Office of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic in the United States.

Thomas de Waal

Thomas de Waal is a senior associate in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program. His latest book is Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2015).