‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’ BILL MOVES AHEAD, AMERICANS IN TURKEY WARNED
By Patrick Goodenough – CNSNews.com International Editor

CNSNews.com, VA
Oct 11 2007

(CNSNews.com) – Turkey’s government on Thursday reacted strongly to
a congressional panel’s approval of a bill calling the mass killings
of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey "genocide."

American citizens in Turkey have been urged to take precautions in
case of anti-U.S. protests over the emotion-laden issue.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul called the move "unacceptable," telling
the semi-official Anatolia news agency in a midnight statement that
some U.S. politicians had "ignored appeals for common sense and
once again moved to sacrifice big issues to petty games of domestic
politics."

Despite concerted and highly visible administration lobbying
against the move, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed by a
27-21 vote a non-binding resolution saying that the World War I-era
killings constituted a "genocide" that should be acknowledged fully
in U.S. foreign policy towards Turkey, along with "the consequences
of the failure to realize a just resolution."

Historians say an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed in
and after 1915, as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. Turkey maintains
that between 250,000 and 500,000 Armenians, and at least as many
Muslims, died in civil strife and war-related deaths, and it denies
the genocide claims.

Opponents of the bill, including President Bush, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a host of former
secretaries of state and defense, Republican and Democrat, argue that
the measure jeopardizes relations with an important ally at a time
Turkey’s cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan are crucial.

Bush said at the White House before Wednesday’s vote that passage of
the resolution "would do great harm to our relations with a key ally
in NATO and in the global war on terror."

After meeting with the president and Rice, Gates told reporters at
the White House that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq —
including 95 percent of new mine-resistant vehicles — goes through
Turkey, and Turkish reaction to the resolution could put those supply
lines in jeopardy.

In a debate the pitted pragmatism against principle and did not fall
along party lines, lawmakers on the committee Wednesday weighed the
warnings of possible consequences against a symbolic but significant
expression of support for the victims of the atrocities.

In an opening statement that acknowledged the difficult decision,
committee chairman Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), a Holocaust survivor,
said the choice was a sobering one.

"We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the
Armenian people and to condemn this historic nightmare through the
use of the word ‘genocide’ against the risk that it could cause young
men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to
pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying," he said.

Republican Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.), a supporter of the bill, tackled
the administration’s position head-on, referring to "a conspiracy of
obfuscation and expediency [that] tries to muffle any acknowledgment
of the Armenian genocide."

"During the Holocaust the international community waffled and
slithered away from responsibility. It did it again in Rwanda, in
Bosnia, and it is doing it even as we speak in Darfur," he said.

"American foreign policy must never be complicit in another
government’s denial of genocide."

Opposing the bill in similarly forceful terms, fellow Republican
Rep. Dan Burton (Ind.) said it could endanger U.S. troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan.

"We’re in the middle of two wars," he told the meeting. "We have
troops out there who are at risk. And we’re talking about kicking an
ally in the teeth. It is crazy."

The resolution will now go to the full House for a vote; a similar
bill is in the Senate.

Egemen Bagis, a foreign policy advisor to Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Turkish private NTV television Thursday
the focus would now move to preventing the measure from reaching the
House floor or passing once there.

When a similar bill reached the House in October 2000, then Speaker
Rep. Dennis Hastert withdrew it minutes before a scheduled vote,
after President Clinton warned it would harm ties with Turkey.

Current Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who has been the target of
energetic lobbying for and against the bill in recent weeks, and
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer met with Turkey’s ambassador Wednesday,
but Hoyer said afterwards he expected a floor vote before the House
adjourns for the year on November 16.

Cooperation at risk

After the vote, the State Department quickly issued a statement
expressing "regret," saying passage of the bill "may do grave harm
to U.S.-Turkish relations and to U.S. interests in Europe and the
Middle East."

Spokesman Sean McCormack reiterated the administration’s position
that the bill will not improve Turkish-Armenian relations or advance
reconciliation between them, and said that the U.S. government supports
"a full and fair accounting of the atrocities that befell as many as
1.5 million Armenians."

Turkish politicians from the president and prime minister down have
been warning that passage of the resolution could impact relations with
the U.S., which are already under strain over cross-border terrorism
perpetrated in southeastern Turkey by Kurdish separatists based in
northern Iraq (see related story).

Turkey has in the past shown itself willing to stop military
cooperation with allies over foreign policy disputes.

When the U.S. Congress in 1975 imposed an arms embargo on Turkey over
its invasion of northern Cyprus the previous year, Ankara responded
by closing all U.S. military operations except for the restricted
use of one airbase. The embargo was lifted in 1978, and Turkey lifted
the restrictions.

More recently, when the French National Assembly voted a year ago to
make it a crime to deny that the killings of Armenians were genocide,
Turkey suspended military ties with France, and military cooperation
has yet to resume (That vote in Paris also reflected the sensitivity
of the issue — 106 deputies voted for the resolution and 19 against,
but 448 chose not to vote at all.)

Late Wednesday, hundreds of Turkish protestors marched to the
U.S. Embassy in Ankara, where a warden’s message has been issuing
warning American citizens about the possibility of "reaction in the
form of demonstrations and other manifestations of anti-Americanism
throughout Turkey."

The statement recalled that French interests in Turkey were targeted
after French lawmakers passed the bill on the issue last October.

It cautioned U.S. citizens living in or visiting Turkey to be alert,
avoid large gatherings, and especially places known to be frequented
by Americans.

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