Agence France Presse — English
October 11, 2007 Thursday

Armenia hails US lawmakers’ backing of ‘genocide’ bill

by Mariam Harutunian

Armenia on Thursday hailed a controversial vote by a US House of
Representatives committee branding the Ottoman Empire’s World War I
massacre of Armenians as "genocide."

Armenian President Robert Kocharian said: "There is no doubt anywhere
in the world about the events that took place in Turkey in 1915 and
there is a consensual attitude towards those events.

"The fact that Turkey has adopted a position of denial of genocide
does not mean that it can bind other states to deny the historic
truth as well," he said, speaking in Brussels.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee defied
warnings from President George W. Bush and Turkey, voting Wednesday
in favour of the resolution by 27 votes to 21.

The Turkish government condemned the action and warned against any
move to take it to a full House vote. To do so, it added, would
jeopardise a strategic partnership with an ally and friend, and would
be an "irresponsible attitude."

The resolution says the "genocide" should be acknowledged fully in US
foreign policy towards Turkey, along with "the consequences of the
failure to realise a just resolution."

"We hope that this process will lead to full recognition by the
United States of America of the effect of the Armenian genocide,"
Kocharian said.

He said his country’s relations with Turkey could not be further
worsened by the US vote and he invited Ankara to launch a dialogue.

"We are ready for diplomatic relations without any preconditions and
we are ready to start a very wide dialogue with Turkish partners on
all possible issues of Turkish-Armenia relations," he added.

In Yerevan, parliament speaker Tigran Torosian opened a session
Thursday to warm applause as he thanked the US lawmakers.

"I want, on behalf of all Armenian members of parliament, to express
our gratitude to our American colleagues, who have shown high moral
standards and did not succumb to pressure (from Turkey)," he said.

Arpi Vardanian, a descendant of survivors and the head of the Yerevan
office of the Armenian Assembly of America, called the vote "a major
diplomatic victory."

"Today is a happy day for Armenians all around the world," he said.
"This victory is especially important in view of the unprecedented
pressure and even threats made by Turkey to the American lawmakers."

According to the Armenians, 1.5 million of their kinsmen were killed
from 1915 to 1923 under an Ottoman Empire campaign of deportation and
murder.

Rejecting the genocide label, Turkey argues that 250,000 to 500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia during
World War I.

The dispute has been a major obstacle in relations between Turkey and
Armenia, which have no diplomatic ties and whose border has remained
closed for more than decade.

Winning international recognition of the killings as genocide has
been a major foreign policy goal of Armenia since gaining its
independence following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

More than 20 countries have officially recognized the killings as
genocide, including Belgium, Canada, Poland, Russia and Switzerland,
as well as the European parliament.

Armenia’s arch-foe Azerbaijan, a Turkic Muslim country with close
ties to Ankara, echoed Turkey’s condemnation of the vote and also
called on the House to reject the resolution.

"This is very unfortunate and regretful," Azerbaijani foreign
ministry spokesman Khazar Ibrahim told AFP. "The decision was based
on very narrow domestic political considerations rather than US
national interests and historic facts. … We can only hope the full
House will be more responsible."

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a territorial dispute over the
ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorny Karabakh, which broke away from
Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s.