Not 2012, but hugely symbolic.
The Armenian Weekly says Senators John Ensign and Robert Menendez have introduced a resolution calling for the U.S. to recognize Turkish genocide of the Armenian people, in which an estimated 500K Armenians (the number varies fairly dramatically) were killed from 1914-1918.
The U.S. government has never recognized the genocide as "genocide". When he campaigned for President, Barack Obama promised he'd change all that, but since being elected, he's dialed that pledge back, refusing to use "genocide" in a statement marking the atrocity's onset.
John Ensign says:
“It inconceivable that after so many years the international community has yet to affirm that the deportation, expropriation, abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation of the Armenian people was genocide. By joining together and affirming that genocide was committed on the Armenian people, we send a strong message to the international community that we will not turn a blind eye to the crimes of the past simply because they are in the past.”
