CHANGE IN U.S. CONGRESS BOOSTS PROSPECTS FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

International Herald Tribune, France
The Associated Press
Dec 26 2006

WASHINGTON: With Democrats taking control of the U.S. Congress,
prospects have increased that lawmakers will approve a resolution
recognizing the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide –
despite the objections of President George W. Bush.

The shift in Congress also dims the likelihood that the Bush
administration can break a deadlock over the president’ss nominee
for ambassador to Armenia, Richard Hoagland. Senate Democrats have
blocked Hoagland’s nomination because of his refusal to call the
killings a genocide.

The matters before Congress highlight how the deaths of the 1.5 million
Armenians almost a century ago remain a sensitive international issue
today. The Bush administration has warned that even congressional
debate on the genocide question could damage relations with Turkey,
a moderate Muslim nation that is a NATO member and an important
strategic ally.

Turkey has adamantly denied claims by scholars that its predecessor
state, the Ottoman government, caused the Armenian deaths in a planned
genocide. The Turkish government has said the toll is wildly inflated
and that Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during
the empire’s collapse.

After French lawmakers voted in October to make it a crime to deny
that the killings were a genocide, Turkey said it would suspend
military relations with France.

In Washington, Armenian-American groups have been pressing for years
for a resolution on the genocide issue. The House of Representatives’
International Relations Committee last year endorsed two resolutions
classifying the killings as genocide. But the House leadership,
controlled by Bush’s Republican Party, prevented a vote by the full
chamber.

With Democrats taking over the House, the top leader will be Nancy
Pelosi, who has supported the genocide legislation. A spokesman for
Pelosi, Drew Hamill, says she’ll continue to support the resolutions.

"I think we have the best chance probably in a decade to get an
Armenian genocide resolution passed," said Democratic Congressman
Adam Schiff, a top advocate of the resolutions.

The genocide question was the key issue as the Senate considered
the ambassadorial nomination of Hoagland to replace John Evans,
who reportedly had his tour of duty cut short because, in a social
setting, he referred to the killings as genocide.

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, blocked the nomination
over Hoagland’s refusal to use the word genocide at his confirmation
hearing in June. With Democrats taking over the Senate, it will be
even more difficult now for the Bush administration to circumvent
Menendez’s objections.

Early this month, Menendez and the Senate’s top Democrat, Harry Reid
of Nevada, wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
asking the Bush administration to withdraw the nomination.

But an administration official responded in a letter to Menendez that
it was continuing to back Hoagland.

"Despite some claims to the contrary, neither Ambassador-designate
Hoagland nor the administration has ever minimized or denied the fact
or the extent of the annihilation and forced exile of as many as 1.5.

million ethnic Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire,"
Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns wrote. The letter was provided
to The Associated Press by a congressional aide, who requested
anonymity because the administration had not agreed to its release.

"It would be a shame for the entire Foreign Service should
Ambassador-designate Hoagland, an experienced diplomat with a
distinguished record of service, be denied confirmation due to past
disagreements over Ambassador Evans."