Trend News Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 12 2007
Bush, Erdogan in tight spot
Congress let the cat out of the bag as the House of Representatives’
Foreign Affairs Committee defied warnings by President George W. Bush
with 27-21 to approve a measure describing as genocide the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century. The
panel sent the resolution to the full House for a vote. Ankara was
shaking with a storm of angry reactions from all quarters as Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came under pressure to act immediately
against the U.S.
Meanwhile there were reports from Washington that the Bush
administration will try to soothe Turkish anger… The U.S.
administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders not to
schedule a vote, though it is expected to pass.
"Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once again
sacrificed important matters to petty domestic politics despite all
calls to common sense," President Abdullah Gul said after the U.S.
vote on the genocide bill.
"This unacceptable decision by the committee, like its predecessors,
has no validity or respectability for the Turkish nation."
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."
Hours before the vote, Bush and his top two Cabinet members and other
senior officials made last-minute appeals to lawmakers to reject the
measure.
"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in
NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said.
In London for a visit Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates
reiterated his opposition to the resolution, telling reporters that
it could harm U.S.-Turkish relations at a time when U.S. forces in
Iraq are relying heavily on Turkish permission to use their airspace
for U.S. air cargo flights.
The move, however, was welcomed by Armenian President Robert
Kocharian who said Thursday his government hoped "this process will
lead to a full recognition by the United States of America … of the
genocide."
Following Wednesday’s vote, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns
said he would call the Turkish ambassador to Washington, and that
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would talk to Turkish leaders on
Thursday.
U.S. diplomats have been quietly preparing Turkish officials for
weeks for the likelihood that the resolution would pass, and asking
for a muted response.
Burns said the Turks "have not been threatening anything specific" in
response to the vote, and that he hopes the "disappointment can be
limited to statements."
"The Turkish government leaders know there is a separation of powers
in the United States, that today’s action was an action by the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, that this was not an action supported by
President Bush and the executive branch of our government," he said.
The Bush administration has expressed concern that the vote could
lead to Turkey cutting off crucial supply lines to Iraq. Gates had
said ahead of the vote that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for
Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by
the U.S. military in Iraq.
"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very
much be put at risk if this resolution passes, and Turkey reacts as
strongly as we believe they will," Gates said.
The vote also came as Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships
attacked suspected positions of Kurdish rebels near Iraq on
Wednesday, a possible prelude to a cross-border operation that the
Bush administration has opposed. The United States, already
preoccupied with efforts to stabilize other areas of Iraq, believes
that Turkish intervention in the relatively peaceful north could
further destabilize the country.
The committee’s vote was a triumph for well-organized
Armenian-American interest groups who have lobbied Congress for
decades to pass a resolution.
Following the debate and vote, which was attended by aging Armenian
emigres who lived through the atrocities in what is now Turkey in
their youth, the interest groups said they would fight to ensure
approval by the full House.
U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson said Thursday he regretted the
committee’s decision, and said he hoped it would not be passed by the
House.
"I sincerely hope the resolution will not be passed and will continue
my efforts to convince members of Congress not to approve it," he
said.
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 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that passing the bill could
strain U.S.-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.
Many in the United States also fear that a public backlash in Turkey
– a key NATO ally – could lead to restrictions on crucial supply
routes through Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the closure of
Incirlik, a strategic air base in Turkey used by the U.S. Air Force.
( TNA )
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress