RICE AVOIDS ANSWERING QUESTIONS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Yerkir
22.03.2007 17:27
YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday
the U.S. should not be involved in a dispute between Turkey and
Armenia over whether the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians almost
a century ago constituted genocide, AP reported.
Under questioning the sponsor of a House resolution that would
declare that Turkey’s Ottoman predecessor state committed genocide,
Rice avoided answering whether she believed there was any basis for
historical debate on the matter.
"What we’ve encouraged the Turks and the Armenians to do is to have
joint historical commissions that can look at this, to have efforts
to examine their past, and in examining their past to get over it,"
she told House Appropriations subcommittee.
"I don’t think it helps that process of reconciliation for the United
States to enter this debate at that level."
"Madame Secretary, your comments that there should be some kind of
debate or discussion about the genocide suggests that you have a
question about whether genocide occurred," said the resolution’s
sponsor, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
The Bush administration, which has heard threats from top Turkish
officials that passage of Schiff’s resolution would damage relations,
has been trying to quash it.
"I believe that this is something that the Turks and Armenians are best
to address," Rice told Schiff at the hearing on the State Department’s
spending for foreign operations.
Later in the day, Shciff said that the US has to press Turkey to
recognize the undeniable fact of the Armenian genocide.