Secretary of State John Kerry said on March 17 that ISIS is responsible for genocide against Yazidis, Christians, and Shiite Muslims.
"Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions," he said.
In December, Congress gave Kerry 90 days — until March 17 — to call ISIS' actions "genocide" in an effort to put pressure on the State Department.
This is only the second time the U.S. has labeled an ongoing conflict "genocide." The term was used in 2004 to describe the atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region, but was rejected, for example, in 1994 as a way to describe the conflict in Rwanda.
Although using the word "genocide" is a powerful symbolic statement, the label has no legal implications for the United States, according to the State Department's deputy spokesperson, Mark Toner.
Kerry's statement also described how ISIS has attacked various ethnic and cultural groups, including Christians.
"We know that Daesh has threatened Christians by saying it will 'Conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women.'"
"We know that Daesh has given some of its victims a choice, between abandoning their faith and being killed, and that for many is a choice between one kind of death and another. The fact is that Daesh kills Christians because they are Christians, Yazidis because they are Yazidis, Shia because they are Shia."
Kerry recognized that neither he nor the U.S. can be the final judge, jury, or prosecutor on this issue. He called for an independent investigation, saying the U.S. would strongly support efforts to analyze evidence of atrocities.
But he also outlined how the U.S. can and must respond to ISIS.
"Part of our response to Daesh must of course be to destroy it by military force, but other dimensions are important as well."
"What Daesh wants to erase, we must preserve. That requires defeating Deash, but it also demands the rejection of bigotry and discrimination, those things that facilitated it's rise in the first place."
"Naming these crimes is important, but what is essential is to stop them."
Watch Kerry's full statement here.
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