ARMENIAN RESOLUTION TAKES US-TURKEY RELATIONS HOSTAGE – 1
Mehmet Kalyoncu*

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Sept 26 2007

‘Will Turks lose the battle they have never fought?’

Rumors vary regarding the possibility of the so-called genocide bill,
HR-106, coming to the House floor to be voted on by the US Congress.

California’s Democrat Congresswoman Ms. Nancy Pelosi, a staunch
supporter of the Armenian genocide allegations, assumed the position
of speaker of the House of Representatives in January 2007.

According to some accounts, in September the Armenian diaspora will
do whatever it takes to pass the bill, which seems possible given
that the number of HR-106 co-sponsors suffices to do that and the
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of the early sponsors of the bill.

According to others, Congress will not bring up the genocide issue
for at least the rest of 2007, as Washington needs Ankara’s full
cooperation to implement its partial troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Nevertheless, the genocide bill’s not coming up in the foreseeable
future does not necessarily solve the most pressing problem affecting
US-Turkish relations. Not only to immunize US-Turkish relations
against the artificial genocide debate, which erratically breaks out,
but also to relieve themselves of a great burden of being accused
of genocide, Turks should pursue a just and final solution to the
genocide debate. There is no better time than now to launch and wind
the battle of ideas, given the American public’s increased awareness
of the Armenian diaspora’s efforts to conceal crucial facts about the
Turkish-Armenian atrocities during World War I and of its efforts to
inhibit free speech on the subject.

An anatomy of the so-called genocide allegation

Not necessarily the entire Armenian diaspora in the United States,
but the militant groups within it, label any language or conversation
that calls to investigate the allegations regarding to the so-called
genocide a form of an outright denial of what they call "genocide."

They seek to justify their unrelenting attitude on this most
politicized issue by suggesting that it would be similar and, as such,
meaningless to investigating the credibility of the Holocaust, which
cost the lives of some 6 million Jews in Nazi Germany.

Beside its undermining of the Holocaust, and its motivation to
exploit the Jews’ deep sorrow, on a moral and intellectual ground,
these militant groups’ attitude itself is already self-defeating
enough. One is naturally inclined to wonder why it would not be normal
to investigate "a truth," while doing so would only affirm it if it
is really "the truth." In addition to the diaspora’s inhibition of
freedom of conscience and speech, the very fact that it is only the
Armenian archives, which are vital to research in order to understand
what really happened in 1915 and the following years, that remain
closed, while the Turkish ones and all others — including Russian,
British, French and American — are wide open to any researchers of
any ethno-national origin, raises questions about the credibility of
the Armenian allegations of genocide.

Moreover, that these archives are kept in Boston, MA, under the
custody of an Armenian foundation headquartered in Toronto, Canada,
and that they are inaccessible not only to Turkish but also to
American researchers who are not ethnic Armenians further challenges
the credibility of the Armenian allegations. According to Dr. Yusuf
Halacoðlu, head of the Turkish Historical Society (TTK) in Ankara,
one frequently cited excuse for these archives remaining inaccessible
to researchers is that they have not been organized yet. Dr.

Halacoðlu noted that he offered to donate $20 million to the Foundation
out of TTK’s own budget, as opposed to the Turkish government’s
budget, in order to expedite the process of organizing these archives
and opening them to research, and yet his offer has been refused by
foundation officials.

The US Congress under pressure

The statistical data indicating that the surge in support for the
HR-106 resolution in the month it was introduced (January 2007) and
the plummeting support thereafter suggests that the Congress members’
support for the resolution is driven primarily by Democrat peer
pressure, if not by their commitment to fulfilling their pre-election
promises to their Armenian American fundraisers and the fear of losing
electoral support in the next elections. The mid-term congressional
elections took place in November 2006 after which the Democrats seized
the majority and California’s Democrat Congresswoman Ms. Nancy Pelosi,
a staunch supporter of the Armenian genocide allegations, assumed the
position of speaker of the House of Representatives in January 2007.

On Jan. 30, California’s Democrat Representative Adam Schiff whose
constituency, and hence campaign sponsors, consist of Armenian
Americans of Glendale, CA, introduced the HR-106 bill which "calls upon
the president to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States
reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues
related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented
in the United States record relating to the Armenian genocide and the
consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution" and "calls
upon the president in the president’s annual message commemorating
the Armenian genocide issued on or about April 24, to accurately
characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000
Armenians as genocide and to recall the proud history of United States
intervention in opposition to the Armenian genocide." The bill has
been co-sponsored by five other representatives whose respective
constituencies consist of a sizeable community of Armenian American
voters. These co-sponsors include respectively George Radanovich
(R-CA), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Joseph Knollenberg (R-MI), Brad Sherman
(D-CA) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI).

On Jan. 31, some 158 members of Congress, including those who
withdrew their support later on, signed onto the HR-106. The number
of representatives pledging support for the bill has plummeted in the
months that followed, averaging 10 per month adding up to the total
of 226 as of today.

One misinterpretation of these numbers would be that more than half
of the House of Representatives (226 out of 435) believe that what
happened in 1915 was "genocide," as the bill suggest, while the
other would be that those who did not sign up onto the bill do
not think what happened in 1915 was not "genocide." In addition,
interpreting these numbers as that the US Congress does not value its
Turkish ally would probably be the most misleading one. Similarly,
blaming the possible recognition of the so-called genocide in the
US Congress on the Jewish American community, by the example of the
Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) recent recognition of it, would not
only be equally misleading, but also amount to shooting oneself in
the foot and ironically rewarding the Armenian diaspora by giving up
an enduring ally in the United States. No need to mention that it has
been the Jewish-American Congress members and community leaders who
have long advocated Turkish theses on this pressing genocide debate.

* Mehmet Kalyoncu is an international relations analyst and can be
reached at kalyoncumehmet@gmail.com 26.09.2007

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