Indian Muslims, CA
Oct 12 2007

US Administration regrets House panel resolution, approved despite
cautioning on Turkish ties

Fri, 10/12/2007 – 02:38. International

WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (APP): The US administration has regretted a House
of Representative panel’s approval of a resolution that declares the
early 20th century deaths of Armenians as genocide, a move which it
said risked harming relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq
war.

The US administration had Wednesday made an emphatic appeal to
Congress to discard legislation but the House Foreign Affairs
Committee defied all calls and voted Wednesday evening to approve the
non-binding measure, calling the mass deaths of Armenians that began
in 1915 genocide.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has promised she will bring the
resolution to the full House for a vote. `We regret that the House
Foreign Affairs Committee has approved House Resolution 106 and sent
it on for consideration by the full House. The administration
continues strongly to oppose this resolution, passage of which may do
grave harm to U.S.-Turkish relations and to U.S. interests in Europe
and the Middle East,’ the State Department spokesman said.

The State Department also observed that the move will not `improve
Turkish-Armenian relations or advance reconciliation among Turks and
Armenians over the terrible events of 1915.’

The United States, it said, `recognizes the immense suffering of the
Armenian people due to mass killings’ and added it supports `a full
and fair accounting of the atrocities that befell as many as 1.5
million Armenians during World War I,’ which the passed resolution
`does not do.’

Turkey lobbied hard to kill the measure, launching a multimillion
dollar campaign and threatening to curtail its cooperation in the
Iraq war. President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates were joined by eight former
secretaries of state and three former defense secretaries in
condemning the proposal.

`This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass
killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a
key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,’ Bush said
Wednesday. According to The Washington Post, the committee’s
chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), said, `We have to weigh the
desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people . . .
against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the
uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier
price.’ Lantos supported the measure, as did most lawmakers from
California, whose large and influential Armenian American community
has pursued similar proposals for decades.

Nabi Sensoy, Turkey’s ambassador to the United States said Ankara
would continue its fight against the resolution.

`Why is Armenia not taking this to an international court? They are
trying to win this on political grounds, and they will never let go,’
he said. Armenian-American groups rejoiced over the resolution
approval.

Turkish officials and some historians say that the deaths more than
90 years ago resulted from forced relocations and widespread fighting
when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, not from a campaign of genocide –
and that hundreds of thousands of Turks also died in the same region
during that time.