US-TURKEY RELATIONS SET TO WORSEN OVER IRAQ AND ARMENIAN ‘GENOCIDE’
By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Vincent Boland in Ankara

FT
February 9 2007 02:00

Turkey’s strained relationship with the Bush administration is likely
to worsen after its foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, failed to make
significant progress on Ankara’s main objectives in Washington
this week.

Disagreements, centred on Iraq and a resolution proposed in the US
Congress that would officially recognise the mass killings of Ottoman
Armenians as genocide, threaten to intensify anti-American sentiment
in Turkey, while raising concerns in the US about a possible Turkish
military intervention in northern Iraq.

ADVERTISEMENT Analysts suggest the disputes could undermine US efforts
to enlist Turkey’s support in isolating Iran, an issue that Dick
Cheney, US vice-president, is believed to have raised.

Mr Gul’s week-long visit to the US had three main aims: to get a firm
US commitment to act against anti-Turkish PKK militants in northern
Iraq; to postpone a referendum due this year on the status of Iraq’s
Kurdish-claimed and oil-rich city of Kirkuk; and to lobby against
the Armenia resolution.

"Gul will not leave Washington a very happy man," said Bulent Aliriza,
analyst with the CSIS think-tank. "Relations will take a hit."

Mr Gul told reporters that the proposed genocide resolution – which
is backed by key lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi, Democratic speaker
of the House – posed a "real threat" to US-Turkey relations.

"It really is a nightmare for us and for you. It will overshadow and
spoil everything between us," he warned.

Ms Pelosi signalled her position by not being available to meet Mr Gul.

The White House is also unhappy with the resolution, but it remains
uncertain how far President George W. Bush will go to lobby against it.

Several countries, notably France, have already adopted a similar
stance on recognising the killings of Christian Armenians by
Ottoman troops as the empire collapsed in 1915. Armenians say it was
genocide. Turkey denies this and says they, and hundreds of thousands
of Muslim Turks, died as a result of civil war, displacement, disease
and hunger.

Anxiety has been heightened by the murder in Istanbul on January 19 of
Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist. Mr Dink was well
known among the Armenian diaspora in the US, especially in California,
the home state of Ms Pelosi.

On Kirkuk, US officials say it is for the Iraqi government to decide
whether to proceed with the referendum to decide its status.