New York Times
October 12, 2007

Turkey Angry Over House Armenian Genocide Vote

By SEBNEM ARSU and STEVEN LEE MYERS

ISTANBUL, Oct. 11 – Turkey reacted angrily today to a House committee
vote in Washington on Wednesday to condemn the mass killings of
Armenians in Turkey in World War I as an act of genocide, calling the
decision "unacceptable."

In a rare and uncharacteristically strong condemnation, President
Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations
Committee in a statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency,
and warned that the decision could work against the United States.

"Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more
dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big
issues for minor domestic political games," Mr. Gul said. "This is not
a type of attitude that works to the benefit of, and suits,
representatives of a great power like the Unites States of America.
This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the
past, has no validity and is not worth of the respect of the Turkish
people."

The Turkish foreign ministry, in a statement today, warned that
relations with the United States will be made more complicated. "The
committee’s approval of this resolution was an irresponsible move
which, at a greatly sensitive time, will make relations with a friend
and ally" more difficult, the Anatolian News Agency quoted the foreign
ministry statement as saying, according to Reuters.

The House decision rebuffed an intense campaign by the White House and
earlier warnings from Turkey’s government that the vote would gravely
strain its relations with the United States.

The vote was nonbinding and so largely symbolic, but its consequences
could reach far beyond bilateral relations and spill into the war in
Iraq.

Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution was
approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the
American war effort, which includes permission to ship essential
supplies through Turkey and northern Iraq.

Before the Wednesday vote, President Bush appeared on the South Lawn
of the White House and implored the House not to take up the issue,
only to have a majority of the committee disregard his warning at the
end of the day, by a vote of 27 to 21.

"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that
began in 1915," Mr. Bush said in remarks that, reflecting official
American policy, carefully avoided the use of the word genocide. "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."

A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed beginning in 1915 in a
systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians
out of eastern Turkey. Turks acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of
Armenians died but contend that the deaths, along with thousands of
others, resulted from the war that ended with the creation of modern
Turkey in 1923.

The House resolution was introduced early in the current session of
Congress and has quietly moved forward over the last few weeks. But it
provoked a fierce lobbying fight that pitted the politically
influential Armenian-American population against the Turkish
government, which hired equally influential former lawmakers like
Robert L. Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, and Richard A.
Gephardt, the former Democratic House majority leader, who backed a
similar resolution when he was in Congress.

Backers of the resolution said Congressional action was overdue.

"Despite President George Bush twisting arms and making deals, justice
prevailed," said Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California
and a sponsor of the resolution. "For if we hope to stop future
genocides we need to admit to those horrific acts of the past."

The issue of the Armenian genocide has perennially transfixed Congress
and bedeviled presidents of both parties. Ronald Reagan was the only
president publicly to call the killings genocide, but his successors
have avoided the term.

When the issue last arose, in 2000, a similar resolution also won
approval by a House committee, but President Clinton then succeeded in
persuading a Republican speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, to withdraw the
measure before the full House could vote. That time, too, Turkey had
warned of canceling arms deals and withdrawing support for American
air forces then patrolling northern Iraq under the auspices of the
United Nations.

The new speaker, Nancy Pelosi, faced pressure from Democrats –
especially colleagues in California, New Jersey and Michigan, with
their large Armenian populations – to revive the resolution again
after her party gained control of the House and Senate this year.

There is Democratic support for the resolution in the Senate, but it
is unlikely to move in the months ahead because of Republican
opposition and a shortage of time. Still, the Turkish government has
made it clear that it would regard House passage alone as a harsh
American indictment.

The sharply worded Turkish warnings against the resolution, especially
the threats to cut off support for the American war in Iraq, seemed to
embolden some of the resolution’s supporters. "If they use this to
destabilize our solders in Iraq, well, then shame on them," said
Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York who voted for
it.

The Democratic leadership, however, appeared divided. Representative
Rahm Emanuel, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, who worked in
the Clinton White House when the issue came up in 2000, opposes the
resolution.

In what appeared to be an effort to temper the anger caused by the
issue, Democrats said they were considering a parallel resolution that
would praise Turkey’s close relations with the United States even as
the full House prepares to consider a resolution that blames the
forerunner of modern Turkey for one of the worst crimes in history.

"Neither of these resolutions is necessary," a White House spokesman,
Gordon D. Johndroe, said Wednesday evening. He said that Mr. Bush was
"very disappointed" with the vote.

Mr. Bush discussed the resolution in the White House on Wednesday with
his senior national security aides. Speaking by secure video from
Baghdad, the senior American officials in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus
and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, raised the resolution and warned that
its passage could harm the war effort in Iraq, senior Bush aides said.

Appearing outside the West Wing after that meeting, Defense Secretary
Robert M. Gates noted that about 70 percent of all air cargo sent to
Iraq passed through or came from Turkey, as did 30 percent of fuel and
virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and
bombs.

"They believe clearly that 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," Mr. Gates
said, referring to the remarks of General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker.

Turkey severed military ties with France after its Parliament voted in
2006 to make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime.

As the committee prepared to vote Wednesday, Mr. Bush, the American
ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, and other officials cajoled
lawmakers by phone.

Representative Mike Pence, a conservative Republican from Indiana who
has backed the resolution in the past, said Mr. Bush persuaded him to
change his position and vote no. He described the decision as
gut-wrenching, underscoring the emotions stirred in American politics
by a 92-year-old question.

"While this is still the right position," Mr. Pence said, referring to
the use of the term genocide, "it is not the right time."

The House Democratic leadership met Wednesday morning with Turkey’s
ambassador to Washington, Nabi Sensoy, and other Turkish officials,
who argued against moving ahead with a vote. But Representative Steny
H. Hoyer of Maryland, who now holds Mr. Gephardt’s old job as majority
leader, said he and Ms. Pelosi would bring the resolution to the floor
before Congress adjourned this year.

In Turkey, a fresh wave of violence raised the specter of a Turkish
raid into northern Iraq, something the United States is strongly
urging against. A policeman was killed and six others were wounded in
a bomb attack in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey
on Wednesday, the state-run Anatolian News Agency reported.

The Associated Press reported from the town of Sirnak that Turkish
warplanes and helicopters were attacking positions along the southern
border with Iraq that are suspected of belonging to Kurdish rebels who
have been fighting Turkish forces for years.

The Turkish government continued to prepare to request Parliament’s
permission for an offensive into Iraq, with Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan suggesting that a vote could be held after the end of
Ramadan. Parliamentary approval would bring Turkey the closest it has
been since 2003 to a full-scale military offensive into Iraq.

Sedat Laciner, from the International Strategic Research Institution,
said that the Turkish public felt betrayed by what was perceived as a
lack of American support for Turkey in its battle against the Kurds.

"American officials could think that Turkish people would ultimately
forget about the lack of U.S. support in this struggle," Mr. Laciner
said, using words that could apply equally to views about the Armenian
genocide. "Memories of Turks, however, are not that easy to erase once
it hits sensitive spots."

Sebnem Arsu reported from Istanbul and Steven Lee Myers from
Washington. Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington and
Sabrina Tavernise from Baghdad.

Source: urkey.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin