STATEMENTS SPLIT OVER GENOCIDE VOTE IN US

CCTV, China
Oct 12 2007

A US congressional panel has defied President George W. Bush and
approved a measure calling the World War One-era killings of hundreds
of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide. The bill angers
Ankara and White House fears that it might undermine Turkish support
in the US war in Iraq.

The US vote comes as Turkey’s government seeks parliamentary approval
for a cross-border military operation to chase separatist Kurdish
rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The US opposes the
move, which could open a new war front in the most stable part of Iraq.

Tom Lantos, Chairman, US House Foreign Affairs Committee, "The
ayes have it. The resolution is adopted and this mark-up session
is adjourned."

On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee
approved a resolution calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks "genocide".

The result brushed aside earlier White House warnings that it would do
"great harm" to ties with NATO ally Turkey, a key supporter in the
Iraq war.

George W. Bush said, "We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of
the Armenian people that began in 1915. But this resolution is not
the right response to these historic mass killings and its passage
would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in
the global war on terror."

Not everyone shares Bush’s concern.

Eliot Engel, Representative From New York, said, "I believe that
Turkey should acknowledge this and move on as well. I don’t support
reparations or a land claim or anything that may grow out of this
resolution. But I do support the fact that genocide is genocide and
there is no way of sugar coating it or cleaning it up or pretending
it isn’t there."

The resolution now goes to the House floor, where Democratic leaders
say there will be a vote by mid-November. A companion bill is in the
Senate. Both measures are strictly symbolic and would have no binding
effect on US foreign policy.

Armenians say more than one and a half million Armenians were killed
in a systematic genocide in the hands of the Ottomans during World
War I, before modern Turkey was born in 1923.

Turkey calls the resolution an insult and rejects the Armenian
position. It says the Armenians were victims of widespread chaos and
governmental breakdown as the 600-year-old empire collapsed in the
years before 1923. Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul warned Bush on
Tuesday that the bill would harm ties between the two allies.

American military officers in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned that
Ankara might become less cooperative in hosting support services for
the US troop presence in the region. Some 70 percent of US air cargo
headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about a third of the
fuel used by the US military in Iraq.