U.S. CONGRESS TO MULL NEW ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL
By Aram Vanetsian in Los Angeles
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Jan 10 2007
Buoyed by the Democratic takeover of the U.S. Congress, pro-Armenian
members of the House of Representatives will re-introduce this month a
draft resolution recognizing the World War I-era killings of Armenians
in Ottoman Turkey as genocide.
Their Armenian-American backers are confident that the new House
leadership will not seek to block the bill which is certain to
anger Turkey and prompt strong objections from the administration of
President George W. Bush.
Its language is expected to be virtually identical with that of
two resolutions that were overwhelmingly approved by the House
International Relations Committee in September 2005. Their passage
by the full House was subsequently thwarted by the White House and
leaders of the then Republican majority in Congress. One of those
resolutions was co-sponsored by 140 lawmakers and called on Bush to
"accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation
of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide."
The new House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is a longtime advocate of Armenian
issues who has supported such resolutions in the past.
"Prospects for [the passage of a genocide resolution] this year are
certainly better than they have been in recent years," said Bryan
Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America,
a Washington-based lobbying group.
Ardouny told RFE/RL that the draft resolution will be introduced later
this month by the two co-chairmen of the congressional Armenian Caucus
and two other congressmen known for their close ties with the Armenian
community in the United States. He said that unlike its previous
analogues, the new legislative measure is a mere "House resolution"
that does not have to be endorsed by the U.S. Senate and signed into
law by Bush.
Ardouny insisted that its passage by the lower chamber of Congress
would still amount to official U.S. recognition of the Armenian
genocide. "I would certainly consider congressional recognition of
the genocide to be official recognition," he said.
The Armenian Assembly and other Armenian-American advocacy groups
have for decades been campaigning for such recognition. They nearly
succeeded in that endeavor in October 2000 when a last-minute
intervention by then President Bill Clinton scuttled the almost
certain adoption of a relevant congressional bill.
"I think we have the best chance probably in a decade to get an
Armenian genocide resolution passed," Congressman Adam Schiff, a
California Democrat, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying
late last month.