WASHINGTON-The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) voiced the Armenian American community's strong support for a human rights statement, issued earlier Thursday by a coalition of anti-Darfur Genocide groups, calling upon the Obama-Biden Administration to protest the upcoming state visit to Turkey of Sudan's President, indicted war-criminal Omar al-Bashir.

The four organizations joining together in making this declaration, the Center for American Progress, Enough!, Save Darfur, and Genocide Intervention Network, referencing al-Bashir's upcoming visits to Ankara and Cairo, stressed the importance of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton engaging in personal diplomacy at the highest level to ensure that a wanted war criminal does not continue to travel with impunity to the capitals of key U.S. allies. The failure to do so, they noted, would "send a powerful message that the Administration isn't serious about implementing the Sudan strategy it just announced."

"We want to thank each of these organizations for their work in demanding clear and determined American leadership in ending the Darfur Genocide," said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA. "There is today, sadly, no more striking example of how the brutal cycle of genocide and denial feeds upon itself than the growing diplomatic and military relationship between Turkey and Sudan."

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is scheduled to visit Turkey next week to attend a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC.) Turkish officials announced yesterday that they would not act on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant issued against al-Bashir for war crimes.

The Ankara and Khartoum regimes have grown markedly closer over the past two years, with Turkey continuing to supply lethal weaponry to Sudan and increased trade between two the countries.