Turkey swift to admonish US over vote
Envoy recalled after resolution on genocide
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | October 12, 2007
WASHINGTON – The government of Turkey yesterday ordered its ambassador
in Washington to return to Ankara for consultations, a swift rebuke to
a congressional committee’s adoption of a resolution that declares
that the World War I-era massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was
genocide.
Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gül, called the resolution approved
Wednesday by the House Foreign Affairs Committee "unacceptable."
Turkey’s foreign ministry warned in a statement that the nonbinding
measure will "jeopardize a strategic partnership" between the United
States and Turkey "that has been cultivated for generations."
Amid the fallout over the committee’s vote, Turkey’s prime minister
announced that he would seek approval from Parliament for a military
incursion into Northern Iraq to more aggressively pursue Kurdish
rebels who have attacked Turkish troops. Although Turkey has long
considered stronger action against cross-border raids from Kurdish
militants, some saw the timing of the announcement, close to the
committee vote, as a veiled warning to the United States, which
opposes the move.
Yesterday, White House and State Department officials scrambled to
lobby against the resolution on Capitol Hill while other senior Bush
administration officials tried to assure the Turkish government that
they are fighting to defeat it. State Department deputy spokesman Tom
Casey told reporters yesterday that Rice would make calls to Turkish
officials.
"This is an issue that we know has great emotional resonance in Turkey
and elsewhere," Casey said. "We oppose it, and we’re going to continue
to do so."
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat whose district
is home to a large Armenian-American population, said the Democratic
leadership was committed to passing the resolution by the end of the
year. She suggested that she does not believe Turkey will make good on
its threats to retaliate.
"So as long as there is genocide, there is need to speak out against
it," Pelosi said yesterday. "The US and Turkey have a very strong
relationship. It is based on mutual interest. And I, with all the
respect in the world for the government of Turkey, believe that our
continued mutual interest will have us grow that relationship."
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said yesterday that he hopes
the Turkish government’s "disappointment" with the genocide resolution
"can be limited to statements" and will not prompt further action
against the United States.
But Bulent Aliriza, a Turkey analyst at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said Turkey will probably launch its full
reaction after the House considers the resolution in the coming weeks.
Repercussions, he said, could include taking away US use of the
Incirlik Air Base, which supplies US troops in Iraq. He also said that
Turkey is now more likely to ignore US requests not to enter northern
Iraq.
"The US ability to influence the Turks, and to dissuade them, has been
undermined quite seriously by this," he said, adding that the United
States is increasingly unpopular in Turkey. "When the US says, ‘Please
don’t intervene,’ the Turks might be less amenable."
At a briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Dana Perino said
that she didn’t "know if there’s a causation" between the resolution
and the Turkish prime minister’s decision to seek permission for
cross-border action against the Kurds in Northern Iraq. Perino said
the US government has been working diligently with Turkey to stop the
attacks by Kurdish rebels, and has appointed a special envoy to deal
with the issue.
Turkish officials said their ambassador would return for a week or 10
days of consultations. The move, a common diplomatic protest, will
also allow the ambassador to take part in deliberations over the
Turkish government’s response.
Introduced earlier this year by Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who
is outspoken on Armenian issues, the resolution on the Armenian
genocide has collected 225 cosponsors, suggesting that it would pass a
possible House vote. But some cosponsors are backing away from their
support in recent weeks due to Turkey’s opposition.
Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat who chairs a House
intelligence subcommittee, was among the cosponsors earlier this year,
but last week urged her colleagues not to pass it.
"Following a visit to Turkey earlier this year . . . I have great
concern that this is the wrong time for Congress to pass this
measure," she wrote in a Oct. 3 letter to the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs. "Turkey plays a critically important role in
moderating extremist forces [in the Middle East]. . . . However valid
>From a historical perspective, we should avoid taking steps that would
embarrass or isolate the Turkish leadership."
Senator Hillary Clinton, a New York Democrat and presidential hopeful,
said she now has qualms about supporting a similar measure she
cosponsored in the Senate.
On Wednesday she told The Boston Globe editorial board that Turkey’s
opposition had been stronger than anticipated and that Congress should
proceed with caution.
Though it is nonbinding, the resolution is a symbolic measure that
establishes for the record an official US version of events that took
place nearly a century ago.
It states that the Ottoman Empire – part of which has become
modern-day Turkey – "conceived and carried out" a systematic campaign
to eliminate the Armenian minority between 1915 and 1923. Nearly 2
million men, women, and children were expelled from their historic
homeland, and as many as 1.5 million people died during that period,
the resolution says.
The resolution calls on the US president to refer to the killings as a
genocide during his annual address commemorating the killings. The
issue is so explosive in Turkey that describing the Armenian killings
as genocide is a crime.
Yesterday, a Turkish court convicted two newspaper editors – including
the son of murdered Turkish-Armenian writer Hrant Dink – for insulting
"Turkishness." The journalists published articles arguing that the
genocide designation is justified.
But Turkish officials adamantly reject that version of events. They
contend the Armenians died in ethnic clashes with the Turks during
World War I, and that the genocide designation does not apply.
The US-Turkish relationship has been under strain since 2003, when
Turkey’s Parliament refused to allow US soldiers to use its territory
to stage the invasion of Iraq. But Turkey did allow use of its air
base to resupply US troops.
The base now serves as a transit point for 95 percent of the
military’s heavy vehicles into Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
told reporters in London yesterday.
Gates said that Turkey’s strong reaction to the congressional
resolution should not be a surprise.
"I think it’s worth noting that the French Parliament passed a similar
resolution, and there were a number of steps taken by the Turkish
government to punish, if you will, the French government." Following
the French vote, Turkey announced it would freeze its military ties
with France.
But state Representative Peter Kotoujian, a Waltham Democrat who has
led the local Armenian-American movement to raise awareness of the
mass killings, said Turkey’s response "should encourage people to
press on" with the genocide resolution.
"The United States has to stand up for truth," said Kotoujian, whose
grandparents survived the massacres. "Unless you stand up for truth,
you can never lead."
(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Source: es/2007/10/12/turkey_swift_to_admonish_us_over_vot e/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
