International Herald Tribune, France
Oct 13 2007
Armenian premier to visit Washington amid new tensions with Turkey
over genocide claim
The Associated Press
Published: October 13, 2007
WASHINGTON: Armenia’s prime minister is to arrive in Washington on
Wednesday for talks with U.S. officials a week after a congressional
committee roiled relations with Turkey by approving a resolution
labeling as genocide the World War I-era killings of Armenians by
Turks.
The timing of Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian’s visit could cause
further tensions with Turkey. Ankara has lashed out at Armenia for
encouraging the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the resolution.
But the visit was scheduled months ago, long before the congressional
committee scheduled its vote, according to the Armenian Embassy in
Washington. Sarkisian is expected to discuss economic cooperation and
security issues in two days of talks with senior officials including
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Sarkisian plans to be in California Oct. 19-23 for meetings with
Armenian-American groups.
The trip comes at a time that relations between Washington and Ankara
have reached a recent low, as Turkey has protested the congressional
foray into a sensitive historical matter.
At issue is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman
Turks around the time of World War I, which many genocide scholars
consider the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that
the deaths constituted genocide, contending the toll has been
inflated, and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest that
killed Muslims as well as the overwhelmingly Christian Armenians.
A day after Wednesday’s vote in Washington, lawmakers in Armenia’s
parliament greeted the committee’s approval of the resolution with a
standing ovation.
Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian urged the United States to go
even further. Speaking in Belgium Thursday, he urged "a full
recognition by the United States of America of the fact of the
Armenian genocide."
President George W. Bush has continued the policy of previous
presidents that recognizes horrendous events almost a century ago but
refrains from describing them as an orchestrated genocide.