Agence France Presse — English
February 22, 2007 Thursday 9:30 AM GMT

Turkish MPs to lobby in US against Armenian genocide bill

Turkish legislators are to travel to Washington to lobby members of
the US Congress against a draft resolution recognising the mass
killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as genocide,
parliamentary sources said Thursday.

Three separate delegations, including members of the ruling Justice
and Development Party and the main opposition Republican People’s
Party, will visit Washington in late February and in March to seek
support against the resolution, expected to be debated at the House
of Representatives in April.

The Democratic-controlled Congress is widely expected to back the
draft, even though the White House is opposed to it, wary over the
impact on relations with a key Muslim ally and a NATO member.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said after a visit to
Washington this month that passing the draft would "poison" ties and
"spoil everything" between the two countries.

In October 2000, a similar draft was pulled from the House floor
following an intervention by then president Bill Clinton.

President George W. Bush commemorates the massacres each year in a
speech, but stops short of calling them genocide.

The parliaments of many countries have recognised the killings as
genocide, and Turkey has responded by temporarily downgrading its
political and economic ties with some of them.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin perished in orchestrated
massacres and deportations in 1915-17 during World War I.

Turkey maintains that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks
died in civil strife, when Armenians took up arms for independence in
eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling
Ottoman Empire.