TURKEY CONDEMNS US CONGRESS RECOGNIZING ‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’
TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Oct 11 2007
Turkey warned the US on Thursday that relations with its NATO ally
would be harmed if the US House Committee approves a resolution
to call the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks genocide,
Reuters reported.
On 10 October, the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27-21
ignoring President Bush’s objections and approved the resolution
deeming it genocide in US foreign policy, according to RIA Novosti.
A government statement said the "irresponsible" resolution, voted
by the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, was likely to endanger
bilateral relations. "We still hope that the House of Representatives
will have enough good sense not to take this resolution further,"
said the statement. To do so, it added, would jeopardise a strategic
partnership with an ally and friend and would be an ‘irresponsible
attitude’, it added. "It is unacceptable that the Turkish nation
should be accused of a crime that it never committed in its history."
Once the resolution was approved, the document was submitted to the
House of the Representatives for further consideration. Leaders of
the democratic majority promise to hold the vote on the resolution by
mid-November. The resolution is not compulsory for the US President
but it still has great symbolic and international importance.
Turkey having the second largest army among the NATO countries used
to warn Washington last year that passage of such a document would
negatively affect US-Turkey relationships, in particular regarding
military cooperation.