BRYZA: WHITE HOUSE GOING TO DISSUADE CONGRESS FROM PASSING GENOCIDE RESOLUTION

PanARMENIAN.Net
12.02.2007 13:38 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A top US State Department official with
responsibility for Turkey said the administration was committed
to dissuading Congress from passing a resolution recognizing the
Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, but said that it was
difficult to make this case while Turkey still kept in its penal code
laws which restricted freedom of speech.

"Deep introspection" was the best way to honor victims of the episode
and to prevent a recurrence of future," according to Matthew Bryza,
Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. He said
that a resolution of Congress would simply lead to a retrenchment
inside Turkey and a hardening of attitudes that would make internal
discussion more difficult.

He called for widespread debate on the issue among philosophers,
archival historians and ordinary people and cited the popular wave of
sympathy for the murdered Armenian editor Hrant Dink as evidence that
many in Turkey wished to achieve a reconciliation with their past. A
resolution of Congress would "kill that process," he said. At the
same time he suggested that it was impossible to convince the outside
world that Turkey could engage in a "candid and heartfelt discussion"
while people who spoke their minds were being prosecuted. "Article
301 has to go away," he said. This is the clause of the Turkish penal
code making it an offense to "insult Turkishness" under which Dink
was successfully prosecuted, reports Today’s Zaman.