TURKEY MULLS CUTTING MILITARY TIES WITH U.S. OVER GENOCIDE VOTE
RIA Novosti, Russia
Oct 11 2007
ANKARA, October 11 (RIA Novosti) – Turkey is considering the suspension
of military cooperation with the U.S. after a House of Representatives
committee adopted a resolution classing the 1915 massacre of some
1.5 million Armenians as genocide.
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee passed
the document on Wednesday despite opposition from President Bush.
Turkey is a key NATO ally and a crucial U.S. partner in operations
in Iraq.
The Turkish NTV television channel said Turkey’s final reaction to the
document would be announced after discussions in parliament scheduled
for early next week.
NTV said Turkey might restrict U.S. use of a joint air base in
Incirlik, close off its air space to U.S. warplanes, and ban Armenian
aircraft from flying over its territory. The majority of supplies
for U.S. troops in Iraq, including fuel and military hardware, pass
through Turkey.
The U.S. resolution has triggered an angry response from Ankara, which
insists that the deaths and deportations of Armenians at the end of
the Ottoman period were caused by civil war rather than deliberate
genocide. However, the majority of Western academics qualify the
massacre as genocide.
The Turkish government released a statement on Wednesday condemning
the move by the House of Representatives, saying that Ankara could
not admit a crime the Turkish people never committed.
The press service of Turkish President Abdullah Gul quoted him as
saying that the U.S. resolution was "petty domestic politics rejecting
calls to common sense."
Ankara previously froze military cooperation with France after its
parliamentarians passed a similar resolution.
Adolf Hitler is believed to have referred to the massacre of Armenians
in Ottoman Turkey when speaking of his plans for the massacre of
Polish-speaking men, women and children, saying, "Who, after all,
remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Turkish scholars dispute the authenticity of the quote.