TURKS SLAM GENOCIDE ACCUSATION

Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
Oct 11 2007

TURKEY has reacted furiously to being labelled guilty of genocide in
the US Congress.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul denounced as "unacceptable" the decision
by a key Democrat-driven congressional committee to brand as genocide
the Ottoman massacres of Armenians in World War I.

The vote threatens to drive a wedge between the US and one of its
most important allies in the Middle East region.

Washington relies on Turkish bases to supply its war effort in Iraq.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people died in deportations and
systematic killings between 1915 and 1917 and want the killings
internationally recognised as genocide.

Turkey denies the killings were genocide.

It says that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died
in civil strife when Armenians fought for independence in eastern
Anatolia in WWI and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling
Ottoman Empire.

President Gul said: "This unacceptable decision of the committee
. . . has no validity and respectability for the Turkish people."

"Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States ignored appeals
for common sense and once again moved to sacrifice big issues to
petty games of domestic politics," he said.

"This is not an action that suits and benefits the representatives
of a great power like the United States."

Hours before the vote, President George W. Bush and his top two
Cabinet members appealed for the genocide claim to be rejected.

Mr Bush warned it would do "great harm to our relations with a key
ally in NATO and in the global war on terror".

Last night the Bush Administration was busy trying to douse the flames.

It fell to State Department spokesman Sean McCormack to enunciate
the Government’s dismay at the vote.

He expressed continued strong opposition and said passage of the
resolution would gravely harm US-Turkish relations and US interests
in Europe and the Middle East.

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said he would call the
Turkish ambassador to Washington, and that Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice would talk to Turkish leaders today.

Further straining ties between the US and its NATO ally, Turkish Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan was expected to ask Parliament overnight to
authorise a military incursion into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish
rebels using the region as a base.

Mr Erdogan is under pressure to act after rebel attacks that have
killed 15 soldiers since Sunday, but political analysts say a major
cross-border operation remains unlikely.

A large incursion would also strain ties with the European Union,
which Ankara hopes to join, and could undermine regional stability.

Russia also urged restraint.