RICE URGES LAWMAKERS AGAINST ARMENIA GENOCIDE BILL

EUX.TV
Oct 10 2007
Netherlands

Washington (dpa) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged
Congress on Wednesday to abandon efforts to declare that the Ottoman
Empire’s killing of Armenians was genocide.

Rice, along with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, said the approval
of the resolution would create severe problems in US-Turkish relations
at a time when the United States needs Ankara’s support in the region.

"The passage of this resolution at this time would, indeed, be very
problematic for everything that we’re trying to do in the Middle
East because we are very dependent on a good Turkish strategic ally,"
Rice said.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee was expected to take up the measure
on Wednesday. The Turkish government vehemently opposes the resolution
over the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923.

Gates said the bill would undermine the US war effort in Iraq because
Turkey is a transit point for most of the military equipment and
supplies shipped into Iraq.

"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be
very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks react
as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said.

About 70 per cent of air cargo into Iraq and 30 per cent of the fuel
used by the US military goes through Turkey, Gates said.

President George W Bush telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan last week to express his strong opposition to the bill. At
the same time Bush administration officials have emphasized that
there opposition to the bill does not recognize the tragedy of the
mass murders.

"This was not to ignore what was a really terrible situation," Rice
said. "And we recognize the feelings of those who want to express
their concern and their disdain for what happened many years ago."

Bush has previously called the slaughter "forced exile and murder"
but has not used the term "genocide" – as Armenians have sought.

In a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post last week, the
Turkish embassy to the US called the pending legislation "one-sided"
and warned it would "affect relations between the United States
and Turkey."