By Natalie Andrews and Robbie Gramer

Vice President JD Vance posted on X acknowledging the Armenian genocide, and then deleted the post, upsetting Armenian diaspora communities in the U.S. and casting a shadow over his historic visit as the first sitting vice president to visit the country.

Vance on Tuesday waded into a fraught issue with an X post about his attendance at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, the nation's capital. It said Vance was doing so "to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide."

The post, which was the first time the Trump administration acknowledged the events as a genocide, was quickly deleted. A spokesperson from the vice president's office said the post was made in error by a staffer who isn't part of his traveling delegation.

The Trump administration's official RapidResponse47 account also deleted a post quoting a reporter asking about Vance's visit to the Armenian Genocide memorial. Alex Galitsky, policy director for Armenian National Committee of America, called the deletion of that post a "brazen genocide denial" and "an affront to a community that fought tirelessly for decades to ensure recognition of that crime."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other Turkish officials have strenuously objected to foreign countries characterizing the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide, saying the issue has been politicized and used as a tool of intervention in internal Turkish affairs with neighboring Armenia.

The Armenian and Turkish embassies in Washington didn't respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Laura Friedman (D., Calif.), rebuked Vance. "You don't get to lay a wreath at the Armenian Genocide memorial and then delete your post mentioning the genocide in order to appease Erdo an. Your actions are an insult to the memories of the victims," she said in a post on X. Friedman represents a district with a large Armenian-American community.

Clad in dark colors, the vice president and his wife Usha Vance placed red roses at the Armenian genocide memorial, known as Tsitsernakaberd. They followed two Armenian guard members carrying a large wreath with 95 carnations, 35 chrysanthemums, 30 red roses and 28 white roses.

When Vance spoke to reporters on his arrival at the airport, he called the mass-killings of Armenians a "very terrible thing that happened" and said the visit to the memorial was "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." Vance wrote "Memory eternal" above his signature in the guest book, according to the pool report.

Trump in 2025 brokered a peace deal between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan aimed at ending decades of intermittent conflict. The deal was backstopped by a plan to create an economic corridor between the two countries, including railways and gas pipelines, with American investment that could avoid other trade routes in the region that pass through Russia and Iran. Trump has repeatedly boasted of solving eight wars since his return to office, including the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Vance and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a civil nuclear agreement during his visit.

Past U.S. administrations had avoided using the word genocide to describe the systematic killing of over 1 million Armenians by the Ottoman empire in the early 20th century to avoid alienating Turkey, a strategically important North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally.

Former President Joe Biden was the first U.S. leader to describe the mass killings as genocide, a term introduced after World War II to describe the systematic eradication of a nationality, race or religious group. He first did so in 2021 when commemorating the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day and drew sharp backlash from the Turkish government at the time.

President Trump notably avoided using the word genocide in his statement last year on the annual remembrance day, April 24, referring to it instead as a "Day of Remembrance." The White House didn't respond to a request to comment on where President Trump stands on calling the killings a genocide.

Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 10, 2026 14:05 ET (19:05 GMT)

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