A US congressional panel has labeled the 1915 killing of Armenians by Turkey ‘genocide’.   President Obama’s administration had tried to prevent voting on the controversial issue on Thursday. Whilst Armenia is happy with the outcome, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the US.  However, the panel felt a decision was important.  Speaking after the vote, Congressman Brad Sherman said: “Long term, we will not have a good relationship with Turkey until it abandons this effort to deny the past and engage in genocide denial.  Would we have a good relationship with the German government denying the Holocaust?  And who would have a good relationship with us if we were denying slavery and so many other things in our past? It is estimated that 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks 95 years ago. Turkey accepts that some people were killed, but it disputes the number that died and will not agree to the term ‘genocide’.

It remained unclear whether the resolution will come to a vote in the full house. A similar 2007 resolution died after intense lobbying by the Bush administration, amid fears it would damage relations between Turkey and the US. Historians say that 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman empire between 1915 and 1923, during a forced resettlement. "The overwhelming historical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was genocide," writes Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, who nevertheless opposes the house resolution as a needless political manoeuvre. The killings are considered one of the first instances of genocide in the 20th century. Turkey insists its historical records indicate no genocide took place, but points to a lack of common historical understanding over the events.