U.S. HOPES TURKEY WILL NOT ACT AFTER GENOCIDE VOTE
Reuters, UK
Oct 11 2007
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration on Wednesday urged
Turkey not to take any "concrete" action after a U.S. congressional
committee angered Ankara by passing a resolution calling 1915 massacres
of Armenians genocide.
The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved the
resolution and it will now go to the House floor for passage, a move
NATO ally Turkey says will damage ties with Washington.
U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said the administration
was "deeply disappointed" by the vote but hoped Turkey, "one of our
most valued and important allies worldwide," would not retaliate.
"We hope very much that the disappointment can be limited to statements
and not extend to anything concrete that would interfere with the very
good way that we have been working with the Turks for many years,"
he told reporters.
Turkey is of strategic importance to the United States, particularly
in Iraq. The bulk of supplies for troops in Iraq pass through Turkey’s
Incirlik air base.
"We need to continue to be able to work together effectively," said
Burns, adding that Turkey had not made any specific threats before
the vote over Incirlik or other areas of cooperation between the
two countries.
Top officials in the U.S. government, from the president down, tried
to convince lawmakers not to pass the resolution while at the same
time trying to soothe Turkish fears by making clear if it went through
this was not U.S. government policy.
"The administration continues strongly to oppose this resolution,
passage of which may do grave harm to U.S.-Turkish relations and to
U.S. interests in Europe and the Middle East," said State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack.
Eight former secretaries of state wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
opposing the non-binding resolution and warning it would endanger
U.S. national security interests.
Burns said Rice planned to call her Turkish counterpart early on
Thursday.
"We will obviously impress upon the Turkish leadership our deep
disappointment and the fact that we opposed this resolution and that
the administration worked very, very hard to produce a different kind
of vote," he said.
Turkey calls the resolution an insult and 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.
Burns said the Bush administration believed there were better ways
of handling such an important issue and Turkey had offered to open
up its Ottoman archives and have shared historical commissions with
the Armenian government.
"It’s our belief that that is the better and more productive way
forward," he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
