The New York Times
October 12, 2007 Friday
Late Edition – Final
Turkey Seethes at the U.S. Over House Genocide Vote
By SEBNEM ARSU; David Stout contributed reporting from Washington.
Turkey reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in
Washington to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in
Turkey that began during World War I, recalling its ambassador from
Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war.
In uncharacteristically strong language, President Abdullah Gul
criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a
statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency, and warned that
the decision could work against the United States.
”Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more
dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice
big issues for minor domestic political games,” President Gul said.
The House vote comes at a particularly inopportune time. Washington
has called on Turkey to show restraint as its military mobilizes on
the border with Iraq, threatening an incursion against Kurdish
insurgents. On Thursday, Turkish warplanes were reported to be flying
close to the border, but not crossing it.
The possibility of Turkish military intervention in Iraq against
Kurdish separatists has long worried American officials for its
potential to ignite a wider war. On Wednesday, the Turkish government
began the process of gaining parliamentary approval to conduct
cross-border operations.
The committee vote in the House, though nonbinding and largely
symbolic, rebuffed an intense campaign by the White House and earlier
warnings from Turkey’s government that such a vote would gravely
strain relations with the United States.
In Washington, the Bush administration tried to ease the hard
feelings between the countries, and vowed to try to defeat the
resolution on Capitol Hill.
”One of the reasons we opposed the resolution in the House yesterday
is that the president has expressed on behalf of the American people
our horror at the tragedy of 1915,” said Dana Perino, President
Bush’s chief spokeswoman. ”But at the same time, we have national
security concerns, and many of our troops and supplies go through
Turkey. They are a very important ally in the war on terror, and we
are going to continue to try to work with them. And we hope that the
House does not put forward a full vote.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would definitely take up the
measure. ”I said if it comes out of committee, it will go to the
floor,” she told reporters. ”Now it has come out of committee, and
it will go to the floor.”
In Turkey, there was widespread expectation that the House committee
vote and any further steps would damage relations between the
countries.
Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution were
approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the
American war effort in Iraq, which includes permission to ship
essential supplies through Turkey from a major air base at Incirlik,
in southern Turkey.
Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, refused to say what
effect the resolution might have on American access to the base, but
he did not exclude the possibility of a policy change. ”This step is
contrary to the U.S. interests,” he said on Thursday, ”and is an
unfortunate decision taken by those who cannot acknowledge Turkey’s
position.”
Already the top Turkish naval commander, Adm. Metin Atac, canceled a
trip to the United States for a conference after Wednesday’s vote, an
American Embassy official confirmed. Admiral Atac’s office did not
specify any reasons for the cancellation.
For his part, Ross Wilson, the United States ambassador to Turkey,
also tried to calm relations, issuing a statement on Thursday saying
that the partnership between Turkey and the United States was strong
and would remain so. He added that he, President Bush and Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice regretted the committee decision.
He was nonetheless later summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Ankara,
the capital, to be briefed on Turkey’s disappointment.
”We had a meeting with Mr. Wilson during which we expressed our
concerns about the developments,” said a spokesperson for the
Foreign Ministry. ”We drew attention to bad reflections on our
bilateral relations and kindly requested his assistance in preventing
the passage of the bill.”
The House decision prompted reaction on the streets of Ankara and
Istanbul. The youth branch of the extreme-leftist Workers’ Party laid
a black wreath at the United States Embassy and spray-painted the
Turkish flag onto an embassy wall.
A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the Armenian
genocide, which began in 1915 as part of a systematic campaign by the
fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey.
Turks have vehemently denied the genocide designation, while
acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died. They
contend that the deaths resulted from the war that ended with the
creation of modern Turkey in 1923.
Identifying Armenian killings as genocide is considered an insult
against Turkish identity, a crime under Article 301 of the Turkish
penal code.
In an Istanbul court on Thursday, Sarkis Seropyan and Arat Dink, the
brother of Hrant Dink, the newspaper editor who was killed by a
17-year-old gunman in January, received suspended jail sentences for
one year for violating that law. They reprinted other newspaper
accounts of Hrant Dink’s statement saying that Armenians suffered
genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Army in the 1910s, their lawyer,
Fethiye Cetin, said.
Not only writers of Armenian origin, but also the Nobel laureate
Orhan Pamuk have been charged under the same law, although his case
was dropped under heavy international pressure.
A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said that United States
diplomats were reaching out to their Turkish counterparts to express
not only their opposition to the resolution but ”our commitment with
Congress on this to see that the full House, in fact, votes to defeat
this resolution.”
Mr. Casey said that State Department and White House officials would
try to persuade ”various members” of the House on how to vote.
Ms. Pelosi said that she did not have a date in mind for bringing the
issue to the floor, but that it would be brought up this session,
which is to end around Nov. 16. Whatever happens, she insisted,
relations between the United States and Turkey will remain strong.