Obama Softens Tone On Armenian Deaths

As a candidate for president, Barack Obama labeled the killing of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians in Turkey during the fall of the Ottoman Empire the "Armenian genocide" and added that it was not "an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence."

But Friday, in marking the 94th anniversary of the killings, President Obama sidestepped the word "genocide."

Obama defended the change in rhetoric, saying it does not reflect any shift in his views, but rather his desire not to cool warming relations between Turkey and Armenia.

"My view of that history has not changed," he said. "My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts. The best way to advance that goal right now is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as part of their efforts to move forward."



Earlier this week, Turkey and Armenia announced that they had agreed in principle to normalize relations, a possible breakthrough in a bitter dispute over century-old massacres. Turkey's position is that the number of Armenians killed has been overstated and that those casualties were victims of a civil war.

-- Michael A. Fletcher

U.S. HOUSE ELECTION

Democrat Murphy Claims N.Y. Victory

Four weeks after the ballots were cast, Democrat Scott Murphy finally declared victory Friday in an exceptionally close House special election in Upstate New York.

Republican Jim Tedisco, a longtime state assemblyman, conceded after the Democrat's lead continued to hover around 400 votes as the final batch of several hundred ballots was being counted.

Murphy, a first-time candidate with government experience in Missouri and venture-capital experience in Manhattan, handed the Republican Party another defeat in the Northeast. Ten years ago, the Empire State sent 13 House Republicans to Capitol Hill; now there are three.

The 20th Congressional District seat came open this year when two-term representative Kirsten Gillibrand (D) was appointed to the Senate, replacing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. link...