Bloomberg
Oct 14 2007
Hoyer Says House to Pass Armenian Genocide Resolution (Update1)
By Nadine Elsibai
Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he expects
the House to pass a non-binding resolution that labels the World War
I-era killing of Armenians by Turks as genocide before Nov. 16, when
Congress is slated to recess for the year.
Hoyer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appearing today on separate news
shows, said the threat of Turkish reprisals would not stop the vote.
“I said if it passed the committee that we would bring it to the
floor,” Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week” program.
Turkey recalled its ambassador after the resolution was passed Oct.
10 by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the Turkish government
warned the vote threatens its strategic partnership with the U.S.
Turkey, the only Muslim member of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, is home to an air base the U.S. uses to re-supply
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also is one of the few
predominantly Muslim nations to have close ties with Israel as well
as Arab countries.
Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said today on “Fox News Sunday” that he
raised the issue repeatedly with Turkish leaders during his 26 years
in Congress and “never once” did they say “this is the right
time.”
He said that he and Pelosi met with the Turkish ambassador to remind
him that the two countries are allies.
Hoyer said they told the Ambassador Nabi Sensoy that the resolution
was “a historical observation” that’s “not about your government.
It is not about the Turkish people. It is about a historical event
that happened that we need to remember to preclude its happening
again.”
U.S. officials called their Turkish counterparts after the panel’s
vote to stress that the administration will do all it can to block
the bill’s passage by the full House. Turkey denies Ottoman Turks
killed 1.5 million Armenians beginning in 1915.
No Appeal From Bush
Pelosi, a California Democrat, said she has had no appeal from
President George W. Bush to block the vote. “We’ve never had a
conversation about it,” she said. “I’ve heard from the secretary of
state and others in the administration, but I’ve never heard from the
president.”
“This resolution is one that is consistent with what our government
has always said about what has happened — what happened at that
time,” Pelosi said. “It is nonbinding. It is a statement made by 23
other countries. We would be the 24th.”
`Subject for Historians’
House Minority Leader John Boehner, who appeared on Fox, urged Pelosi
not to bring the resolution to a floor vote.
“What happened 90 years ago ought to be a subject for historians to
sort out, not politicians here in Washington,” Boehner, an Ohio
Republican, said. “Bringing this bill to the floor may be the most
irresponsible thing I’ve seen this new Congress do this year.”
The head of Turkey’s armed forces told the newspaper Milliyet he
called the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and told him
the U.S. has “shot itself in the foot.”
No legislative assembly in an ally of Turkey would pass such a
measure, Yasar Buyukanit said, adding he hopes the full House would
defeat the resolution, according to Milliyet.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the resolution a
“really bad idea.”
“We all know” the killings occurred, McConnell, a Kentucky
Republican, said on ABC. “I don’t think the Congress passing this
resolution is a good idea at any point. But particularly not a good
idea when Turkey is cooperating with us in many ways, which ensures
greater safety for our soldiers.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s national
security adviser, said on Cable News Network, “I never realized the
House of Representatives was some sort of an academy of learning that
passes judgment on historical events.” As for the House passing
resolutions on whether the Armenian killings “should be classified
as genocide or a huge massacre is I don’t think any of its
business,” he said.