Vice President JD Vance’s office deleted a social media post on Tuesday that broke with administration policy in acknowledging the Armenian genocide after Mr. Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, visited a memorial to the estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks over a century ago.
The post in question, made on the vice president’s X account, said that the vice president and second lady had laid a wreath “at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide.”
The post was then taken down. President Trump has not recognized the Armenian genocide.
In response to questions from a pool reporter traveling with the vice president in Yerevan, Armenia, an official from Mr. Vance’s office said the post was made in error by staff who were not part of the delegation.
“This is an account managed by staff that primarily exists to share photos and videos of the vice president’s activities,” Mr. Vance’s office said in the statement. “For the vice president’s views on the substance of the question, I refer you to the comments he made earlier on the tarmac in response to the pool’s question.”
The Vances on Tuesday visited the site, called the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, accompanied by Edita Gzoyan, the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) in Yerevan, as part of the vice president’s trip to the region.
Also on Mr. Vance’s agenda is a visit to Azerbaijan as he aims to advance a deal ending a decades-long military conflict between the two countries.
“I’m the first vice president to ever visit Armenia, they asked us to visit the site,” Mr. Vance told reporters. “Obviously, it’s a very terrible thing that happened a little over 100 years ago, and something that was just very, very important to them culturally.” He said he visited the site “out of a sign of respect, both for the victims, but also for the Armenian government that’s been a very important partner for us in the region.”
At the risk of angering Turkey, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. became the first American president to formally announce in 2021 that the United States regarded the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by Turks more than a century ago as a genocide.
But Mr. Trump has declined to do so.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is a fervent denier of the genocide, and he has lobbied the United States against using the term.
“Turkey never tires of humiliating America,” Aram Hamparian, the director of the Armenian National Committee of America, wrote on social media in response to the removal of the post. “This time, forcing a sitting US Vice President to delete his post about the Armenian Genocide.”
Luke Broadwater covers the White House for The Times.
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