New York Sun, NY
Feb 22 2007

Turkey Up in Arms Over House Resolution Against Armenian `Genocide’
By ELI LAKE

Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 22, 2007

WASHINGTON – Turkey was so alarmed by a proposed House resolution
calling the mass slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I a
"genocide" that it dispatched its foreign minister to persuade
American Jewish leaders to lobby against it.

At a suite at the Willard Hotel in Washington on February 5, Abdullah
Gül met with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, American
Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, Friends of Lubavitch, Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs, and United Jewish Communities. According
to one participant in the meeting, the Turkish foreign minister "made
a hard sell," against House resolution 106, whose short title is
"Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide
Resolution."

This participant, who asked not to be named, said Mr. Gül appealed to
the assembled Jewish representatives by noting the singularity of the
German genocide against the Jews and warning that the House
resolution, if passed, would rupture American-Turkish relations.

The Turks have reason to be worried. Although the resolution has
faced opposition from the House leadership in previous congressional
sessions, the current speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of
California, is said to support it. Indeed, Ms. Pelosi has supported
similar resolutions in the past. The resolution is now before the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, whose chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos
of California, has supported the Armenian genocide resolution in
recent sessions, though he opposed it in the past.

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