WASHINGTON — Once again, the Obama administration has shied-away from using the word genocide to describe what befell Armenians in Turkey 100 years ago.

Despite Obama’s pledges as a presidential candidate to use this term, his White House — like those before it — appears reluctant to offend a NATO ally on the front lines of so many conflicts in the Middle East.

Instead the Obama administration speaks obliquely of the “1915 atrocities” that “extinguished” 1.5 million lives — without saying who was responsible for the killing. But academics and think-tankers in Washington say there is growing recognition that the deaths of Armenians in Turkey during World War I was the result of a genocidal campaign by Ottoman Turkish authorities that began with mass deportation of Armenians from Istanbul on April 24, 1915.

“It’s a matter of time” before the US government catches up with the academic consensus about those tragic events, Arman Grigoryan, an assistant professor of international relations at Lehigh University who emigrated from Armenia 20 years ago, told Al-Monitor. He said there had been a significant increase in awareness about the genocide in the United States and around the world, including more frequent use of the term by mainstream media.