HOUSE PANEL OKS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
By Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell

ABC News, USA
Reuters
Oct 11 2007

Share WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House committee approved on
Wednesday a resolution calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians
genocide, brushing aside White House warnings that it would do "great
harm" to ties with NATO ally Turkey, a key supporter in the Iraq war.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved the
resolution 27-21. It now goes to the House floor, where Democratic
leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November. There is a companion
bill in the Senate, but both measures are strictly symbolic and do
not require the president’s signature.

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Topics House of Representatives Senate Turkey calls the resolution,
which was proposed by a lawmaker with many Armenian-Americans in his
district, an insult. Ankara rejects the Armenian position, backed by
many Western historians, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One.

Turkey has warned of damage to bilateral ties and military cooperation
if Congress passes the measure. President George W. Bush and his
secretaries of state and defense warned against the step, as did a
number of former U.S. secretaries of state.

"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass
killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with
a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said at
the White House before the vote.

The bulk of supplies for troops in Iraq pass through Turkey’s Incirlik
airbase, and Turkey provides thousands of truck drivers and other
workers for U.S. operations in Iraq. Supplies also flow from that
base to troops in Afghanistan.

Advocates of the resolution said Turkey should simply acknowledge
history and stop threatening retaliation.

"I think our relationship is important enough to the United States
and Turkey to survive our recognition of the truth," California
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the chief sponsor, said in an interview
after the vote.

The committee vote followed hours of sometimes emotional debate over
whether, as the panel’s chairman Rep. Tom Lantos said, lawmakers
should "condemn this historic nightmare through the use of the word
genocide." or put military cooperation with an upset Turkey at risk.

NEED TO ‘CLEAN OUR OWN HOUSE’

Lantos, a California Democrat and Hungarian-born Jew who survived
the Nazi Holocaust, voted for the resolution.

Some lawmakers said backers were hypocrites or just plain "crazy,"
as Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican, put it.

"We’re talking about stiffing the one ally that is helping us over
there (in Iraq). It just doesn’t make any sense," Burton told a
packed hearing room. The audience included Turkish officials and
elderly survivors of the massacres.

Rep. Gregory Meeks, a black Democrat from New York, said Congress
should focus on the failings of U.S. history, such as slavery or the
killings of Native Americans.

"We have failed to do what we’re asking other people to do … We
have got to clean up our own house," said Meeks, who voted against
the resolution.

Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, Nabi Sensoy, told reporters
after the vote he did not want to prejudge what his government would
do. "We are disappointed at this point, but this process is going on,"
he said.

The White House was "very disappointed," but a spokesman said Bush
hoped the whole House would reject the bill.

The Armenian Assembly of America commended the move. "It is long past
time for the U.S. government to acknowledge and affirm this horrible
chapter of history," it said.

Similar resolutions have been introduced for years, with
Armenian-American groups pressing for passage. But when Republicans
ran Congress they blocked a floor vote. Now Democrats are in the
majority and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a long-time supporter of
such measures. Schiff has 225 co-sponsors, over half the House.

At the invitation of House leaders, the spiritual leader of Armenian
Apostolic Christians worldwide, His Holiness Karekin II, gave the
opening prayer in the House chamber on Wednesday morning, wearing
the black-hooded attire of his church.