US lawmakers and Armenian-American groups teamed up March 18 to unveil legislation recognizing the death of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire as a genocide.
The resolution marks 100 years since the arrest and subsequent massacre of 200 Armenian community leaders in Istanbul on April 24, 1915. It is vehemently opposed by Ankara, and the Obama administration has privately warned that its passage would further strain US-Turkish relations.