Washington ( CNN ) This week is the 100th anniversary of what many historians acknowledge as the Armenian genocide -- the Turkish massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians . And it 's also the seventh year in a row President Barack Obama has broken his promise to use the word `` genocide '' to describe the atrocity . It 's a moral position taken by Pope Francis , actor George Clooney and even by the Kardashians . On the 2008 campaign trail , Obama promised to use the word `` genocide '' to describe the 1915 massacre by Turks of Armenians -- a pledge he made when seeking Armenian-American votes . Back then , he held up his willingness to call it a `` genocide '' as an example of why he was the kind of truth-telling candidate the nation needed . 8 things to know about the mass killings of Armenians 100 years ago . In 2006 , after the U.S . Ambassador to Armenia was asked to resign for using the term Armenian genocide , then-Sen. Obama hammered the Bush administration for not taking a stand . `` The Armenian genocide is 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 , '' he said . But that was then . And now , as was the case with Bush , Obama regards Turkey -- the only Muslim majority country in NATO -- as a more crucial ally than Armenia . Turkey has the second-largest military in NATO , behind only the U.S. , and is a crucial ally when it comes to Syria , ISIS , Iran and other Middle East issues . And Turkey denies this history . `` We can not define what happened in 1915 as a genocide , '' Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told CNN on Tuesday . Why Turkey wo n't say the G-word when it comes to the Armenians . In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book about genocide , Obama 's current Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power hammered U.S. policy makers for not acknowledging or acting to stop such atrocities . `` No U.S. president has ever made genocide prevention a priority , and no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence . It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on , '' she wrote .
Obama promised Kardashians he would call the atrocity genocide during the 2008 campaign . The White House views Turkey as a more crucial ally than Armenia . Pope Francis , actor George Clooney , and even the Armenian-Americans have taken the moral position , calling it the Armenian genocide .