The resolution asserts that it is U.S. policy to commemorate as genocide the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the World War I. The Ottoman Empire was centered in present-day Turkey.

“It is the policy of the U.S to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance,” says the resolution.

The resolution also rejects attempts to “enlist, engage, or otherwise associate” the U.S. government with denial of genocide.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart. They say the mass killings amounted to “genocide.”

Turkey accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies that the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide.

Under the Senate’s rules any senator can ask to pass a resolution. As long as another senator doesn’t object, the measure will clear the chamber.

The move comes after three Republican senators previously blocked passage of the resolution amid pressure from the White House, which argued that it would undercut negotiations between Washington and Ankara.

In mid-November during his visit in Washington, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his call for historians to investigate the issue.

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