The White House does not believe the Islamic State’s actions against Christians in the Middle East have risen to the level of genocide, a spokesman told reporters in Washington this week.

Speaking at a press briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration was “concerned by the way that ISIL attempts to target religious minorities” — including Christians — in Iraq and Syria. But when a reporter asked the spokesman if the White House was prepared to call the situation genocide, he declined to give the acts that distinction.

“My understanding is, the use of that word involves a very specific legal determination that has at this point not been reached,” Earnest told reporters, according to a transcript published on the White House website. “But we have been quite candid and direct about how ISIL’s tactics are worthy of the kind of international, robust response that the international community is leading. And those tactics include a willingness to target religious minorities, including Christians.”

ISIL is an acronym for the Islamic State, which controls large swaths of land in Iraq and Syria and has been accused of widespread atrocities and human rights abuses in those areas.

The European Parliament and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have recently adopted resolutions that accuse the organization’s operatives of committing genocide, which is outlawed under a 1948 United Nations treaty that defines the crime as certain acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Those actions include murdering or inflicting serious harm upon a group’s members.

According to ADF International, there are now 1.8 million fewer Christians living in Iraq and Syria than there were a few years ago. The religious freedom advocacy group places the current population at 775,000, down from 2.65 million, and says Yazidis have nearly been wiped out.

The European Parliament’s resolution, adopted last month, accuses the Islamic State of “committing genocide against Christians and Yazidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities, who do not agree with” the group’s radical interpretation of Islam. It states the Islamic State has slaughtered, beaten, extorted, enslaved and forcibly converted many minorities, and its operatives have also vandalized cemeteries, monuments, churches and other places of worship.

The resolution called for the United Nations Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court, which would formally investigate the genocide allegations. The court would also prosecute and try the accused, and impose punishments upon a guilty verdict.

ADF International has issued a similar call for action.

The United States has also been asked to characterize the Islamic State’s actions as genocide.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent commission that makes recommendations to politicians, in December asked the government to designate Christians and four other groups as victims of Islamic State genocide in Iraq and Syria. So far, though, the White House has yet to place the label on the Middle East situation.

“In that region of the world, Christians are a religious minority, and we certainly have been concerned,” Earnest said during the press briefing on Monday. “That’s one of the many reasons we’re concerned with ISIL and their tactics, which is that it’s an affront to our values as a country to see people attacked, singled out or slaughtered based on their religious beliefs.”

The Omnibus spending bill approved by Congress in mid-December includes a provision that says the Secretary of State, John Kerry, must submit an evaluation on the Islamic State’s attacks on Christians and other people of faith in the Middle East to lawmakers within 90 days. That evaluation must include if the situation “constitutes mass atrocities or genocide,” the bill states.

The deadline for that report falls in mid-March.