The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
February 4, 2007 Sunday
Main Edition

U.S. debates ‘genocide’;
Term for Armenian deaths affects diplomatic ties

The touchy subject of the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the end
of World War I is back in the news again, as a bipartisan group of
lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives last week introduced
the latest version of an Armenian genocide resolution.

After years of trying, members of Congress and their politically
active Armenian American allies now think they can prevail over the
Bush administration’s strong opposition to a measure that is
guaranteed to incite controversy with Turkey, a key U.S. ally.

The 10-page resolution, whose chief sponsor is Rep. Adam Schiff
(D-Calif.), is being called the "affirmation of the United States
record on the Armenian Genocide."

Essentially, it would put the House on the side of Armenians and many
historians who have studied the period between 1915 and 1923.

Some 1.5 million Armenians were killed as part of a policy of
extermination conducted during the final days of the Ottoman Empire,
the resolution asserts. The nonbinding resolution further calls upon
President Bush to use the word "genocide" in his annual April message
commemorating the horrific events.

Bush and preceding presidents, attentive to the concerns of Turkey
and the State Department, have delicately avoided using the term when
referring to Armenia. Turkey has adamantly denied claims by scholars
that its predecessor state, the Ottoman government, caused the
Armenian deaths in a genocide.

The Turkish government has said the toll is wildly inflated, and
Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the
disarray surrounding the empire’s collapse.

"Armenian Americans have attempted to extricate and isolate their
history from the complex circumstances in which their ancestors were
embroiled," the Turkish Embassy declared in a statement last week.
"In so doing, they describe a world populated only by white-hatted
heroes and black-hatted villains."

In Turkey, it is a crime to use the word "genocide" to describe the
deaths, and people have been prosecuted for it.

Turkey has no diplomatic relations with Armenia.

Diplomatically, it’s an acutely sensitive issue. The Bush
administration has warned that even congressional debate on the
matter could damage relations with Turkey.

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

Turkey provides vital support to U.S. military operations. Incirlik
Air Force Base, a major base in southern Turkey, has been used by the
United States to launch operations into Iraq and Afghanistan and was
a center for U.S. fighters that enforced the "no-fly zones" that kept
the Iraqi air force bottled up after the 1991 Gulf War.

A member of NATO now hoping to join the European Union, Turkey enjoys
its own Capitol Hill clout with the assistance of well-placed
lobbyists, including one-time congressman Bob Livingston.

"I do think we have the best opportunity in a decade to succeed,"
said Schiff, "but no one should be under the illusion that this will
be easy."