ARMENIAN KILLINGS COULD BE ‘GENOCIDE’
Desmond Butler

The Herald, UK
Dec 27 2006

Democrat control of the US Congress has increased the chance lawmakers
will approve a resolution recognising the First World War-era killings
of Armenians as genocide.

The shift in Congress also dims the likelihood the Bush administration
can break a deadlock over the President’s nominee for ambassador
to Armenia, Richard Hoagland. Senate Democrats blocked Hoagland’s
nomination over his refusal to call the killings, more than 1.5million
died, a genocide.

"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 Bush administration warned even congressional debate on the
question could damage relations with Turkey, a moderate Muslim nation
that is a Nato member and an important strategic ally. Turkey has
adamantly denied that its predecessor state, the Ottoman government,
caused the Armenian deaths in a planned genocide.

The Turkish government 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 the killings were a genocide, Turkey said it would suspend
military relations with France.

In Washington, Armenian-American groups have been pressing for a
resolution on the genocide issue and 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.
From: Baghdasarian