A delegation from Southern California joined scores of other Armenian-Americans in Washington, D.C. to demand official U.S. recognition of a genocide they say was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. The representatives joined a gathering of about 350 Armenian-Americans for the Armenian National Assembly\'s two-day conference, where they also urged increased foreign assistance for their homeland and better trade relations with the United States. Southern California is home to about 400,000 Armenian-Americans, the largest such community in the nation. Assembly members were buoyed Monday by a State Department announcement that the Bush administration supports permanent normal trade relations with Armenia. But members acknowledged that with Turkey on the front lines of the war on terror, they won\'t see the phrase \"Armenian genocide\" in official U.S. statements anytime soon. \"I\'m sure President Bush will issue a statement on the anniversary about \'those dark days\' or \'those massacres,\'\" said Osheen Keshishian of Los Angeles, who publishes the Armenian Observer, an English-language weekly based in Hollywood. Keshishian, who also teaches at Glendale Community College, said the issue remains a burning one for Armenians in the United States. \"The point is, justice has to prevail. Truth has to prevail,\" he said. Armenian-Americans allege 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923. Turkish officials say far fewer people died amid a multiparty conflict. Tuluy Tanc, the minister-consular at the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C., called the term genocide \"unfair and untrue.\" \"We do not think or believe a genocide occurred in Turkey,\" Tanc said. \"Events in Turkey were, during the course of a world war, tremendously unhappy. Events took place affecting Armenians, Muslims, Turks and all components of the Ottoman Empire.\" (AP)