TURKISH LEADERS DECRY US GENOCIDE BILL
Taipei Times, Taiwan
Oct 12 2007
INSULTING: President Bush had warned that the bill could harm
US-Turkish relations, while the Turkish government will seek approval
for an incursion into northern Iraq
AGENCIES, ISTANBUL, TURKEY
Friday, Oct 12, 2007, Page 7
Turkish leaders yesterday reproached a US congressional panel decision
to approve a bill describing the World War I-era killings of Armenians
as genocide.
Despite intense lobbying by Turkish officials and opposition by US
President George W. Bush, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed
the bill by a 27-21 vote — a move likely to be considered an insult
by most Turks.
Bush had warned that the bill could harm US-Turkish relations, which
are already tense as Turkey considers staging a military offensive
into Iraq against Kurdish rebels who have hideouts there. The US
fears such an operation could destabilize one of the few relatively
peaceful areas in the country.
"Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once again
sacrificed important matters to petty domestic politics despite all
calls to common sense," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said after
the US vote on the genocide bill.
In a statement, the Turkish government condemned the panel’s vote.
"It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which
was never committed by the Turkish nation," the statement said. "It
is blatantly obvious that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs does
not have a task or function to rewrite history by distorting a matter
which specifically concerns the common history of Turks and Armenians."
Turkish newspapers denounced the decision.
"27 foolish Americans," the Vatan daily said on its front-page
headline, in reference to legislators who voted in favor of the bill.
Hurriyet called the resolution: "Bill of hatred."
Bush had urged Congress to reject the legislation, and Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates also
conveyed their concerns.
Passing the measure "at this time would be very problematic for
everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice told reporters
at the White House hours before the vote
On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to the US embassy in Ankara
and the consulate in Istanbul to protest the bill.
The US embassy, meanwhile, urged its citizens to be alert for possible
violence after the vote, amid fears of an increase in anti-American
feeling in Turkey.
The Turkish anger over the bill has long prevented a thorough domestic
discussion of what happened to a once sizable Armenian population
under Ottoman rule.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic
genocide between 1915-17, before modern Turkey was born in 1923.
Turkey says the killings occurred at a time of civil unrest as the
Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that the numbers are inflated.
Turkey’s political leadership and the head of state have told both
Bush and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passing the bill could
strain US-Turkey ties, already stretched by Washington’s unwillingness
to help Ankara crack down on Kurdish rebels holed up in Iraq.
After France voted last year to make it a crime to deny the killings
were genocide, the Turkish government ended its military ties with
that country.
Meanwhile, the Turkish government was likely to submit a motion to
parliament yesterday seeking approval for an incursion into northern
Iraq to pursue Kurdish rebels, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said as deadly violence continued to plague the mainly
Kurdish southeast.
Erdogan hinted that no immediate military action was planned.
"We could send the motion to parliament tomorrow," he told CNN Turk
television late on Wednesday, adding that a vote on the text could
take place next week.
The government, he said, is planning to seek a one-year authorization
for an incursion into northern Iraq, where about 3,500 militants of
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are taking refuge.