Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 27 2007

Committee to vote on Dink resolution

The US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has planned to vote on a
resolution Wednesday condemning the murder of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink, calling on Turkey to abolish a penal code
article widely considered to be a barrier standing in the way of
freedom of expression, and asking Turkey to establish diplomatic,
political and economic relations with neighboring Armenia.

Authored by the committee chairman Joe Biden, a Democrat, the
resolution specifically cites that Dink "was prosecuted under Article
301 of the Turkish Penal Code [TCK] for speaking about the Armenian
Genocide," and urges the Turkish government to repeal the infamous
Article 301.

Dink was tried and handed a six-month suspended sentence for
"insulting Turkishness," a crime under Article 301. The editor in
chief of the bilingual Agos newspaper was gunned down outside his
office in Ýstanbul on Jan. 19.

The committee had delayed a planned vote on the non-binding
resolution three weeks ago when the ranking member of the committee
Richard Lugar objected to it and wanted the "Armenian genocide"
expression to be taken out of the resolution.

The delay had led to disappointment in the Armenian diaspora while
pleasing Ankara.

It is not clear yet whether or not the "Armenian genocide" expression
has been removed.

Ankara vehemently denies Armenian allegations that some 1.5 million
Anatolian Armenians were killed as part of genocide at hands of the
Ottoman Empire during World War I and calls for an objective
scientific study of the issue. In January of this year a resolution
for the official recognition of Armenian allegations was introduced
at the US House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, officials at the Turkish Embassy in Washington have been
constantly informing US lawmakers over "inappropriate expressions"
and facts in the resolution.

Ankara also believes that the international community appreciated the
Turkish leadership’s stance when faced with the murder of Dink as all
Turkish leaders, including the president and the prime minister,
harshly condemned the murder with strongly worded remarks.