US COMMITTEE APPROVES ANTI-TURKISH RESOLUTION

NTV MSNBC, Turkey
Oct 11 2007

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that approving the resolution
"would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the
Middle East".

WASHINGTON – The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of
Representatives on Wednesday adopted a resolution describing the
killing of Armenian’s by the Ottoman Empire during World War One as
an act of genocide.

The resolution, passed with a vote of 27 in favour to 21 against, was
adopted despite strong lobbying from Turkey and senior officials of
the Bush Administration. Both have warned that passing the resolution
could harm Turkish-US ties.

Turkey has strenuously rejected Armenian claims that the Ottoman
Empire committed an act of genocide during World War One, though does
acknowledge that up to 300,000 Armenians died during civil unrest in
the eastern provinces of what is now modern Turkey. However, it also
points to the fact that up to half a million ethnic Turks also died
during the strife.

Prior to the vote, President George W Bush said that adopting the
resolution "would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in
NATO and in the global war on terror".