The Scotsman, UK
Oct 12 2007
US-Turkey alliance shaken by vote on Armenia ‘genocide’
ALEX MASSIE
IN WASHINGTON
ARMENIANS celebrated a landmark victory in Washington yesterday after
the US Congress moved a step closer to formally recognising the
Armenian genocide of 1915.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee defied President George W Bush
and the Washington foreign policy establishment by voting 27-21 to
put a resolution categorising the death of up to 1.5 million
Armenians as genocide to a vote of the full House of Representatives.
The resolution, which is backed by the Democratic leadership in the
House, will come up for a vote before the House retires for the
Thanksgiving recess next month.
Last night, Turkey withdrew its ambassador in the US for
"consultations".
The committee’s vote was a triumph for Armenian-American interest
groups who have lobbied Congress for decades to pass a resolution –
against the might of Turkish opposition.
After the debate, which was attended by elderly Armenian émigrés who
lived through the atrocities, the interest groups said they would
fight to ensure approval by the full House.
"We hope that this process will lead to the full recognition by the
United States of America of the fact of the Armenian genocide," said
Armenia’s foreign minister, Robert Kocharian.
"It is long past time for the US government to acknowledge and affirm
this horrible chapter of history – the first genocide of the 20th
century and a part of history that we must never forget," said Bryan
Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America.
Some committee members said backers were hypocrites or plain "crazy",
as Representative Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican, put it. "We’re
talking about ‘stiffing’ the one ally that is helping us over there
[in Iraq]. It just doesn’t make any sense," he told a packed hearing
room.
The committee’s decision paves the way for a month of furious
lobbying from both sides. Turkey denies that any genocide took place,
blaming the death of, by Turkish estimates, between 250,000 and
500,000 Armenians on the general confusion and horrors of war.
Turkey warned yesterday that passing the resolution would severely
compromise the health of US-Turkish relations. "This unacceptable
decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, is not
regarded by the Turkish people as valid or of any value," said
President Abdullah Gul. In a letter sent to Mr Bush, Mr Gul vowed
that "in the case that Armenian allegations are accepted, there will
be serious problems in the relations between the two countries."
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives,
represents a California district with a large Armenian community that
has helped push her to backing the resolution, regardless of the
damage it may do to relations between Washington and Ankara.
"For most members, this is about domestic politics, not foreign
relations," said a senior Democratic aide who predicted that if the
resolution "comes to the floor, it will pass". The resolution’s
backers claim they have the support of 226 of the 435 members of
Congress – enough for a comfortable majority.
"The sad truth is the modern government of Turkey refuses to come to
terms with this genocide,” said Congressman Chris Smith, a
Republican from New Jersey. "It is this denial that keeps the
Armenian genocide a burning issue."
The fight over an often overlooked element of First World War history
has become a struggle between realpolitik and idealism as members of
Congress balance their obligations to their conscience against what
the resolution’s opponents say is the American national interest.
Eight former secretaries of state and three former defence
secretaries wrote to members of Congress warning that passing the
resolution would damage vital US interests in the Middle East.
President George W Bush – who backed recognising the genocide in 2000
– also warned that while "we all deeply regret the tragic suffering
of the Armenian people, this resolution is not the right response to
these mass killings."
Mr Bush said the resolution would do "great harm to our relations
with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror".
The debate has even embroiled American Jewish groups in controversy.
Turkey is the only Muslim country friendly to Israel and leading US
Jewish organisations have called upon congress to resist Armenian
entreaties that the genocide be recognised. "I don’t think
congressional action will help reconcile the issue. The resolution
takes a position; it comes to a judgment," said Abe Foxman, head of
the Anti-Defamation League earlier this year. "The Turks and
Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn’t
be the arbiter of that history, nor should the US Congress."
Jewish reluctance to recognise another genocide has been criticised
by members of Congress and Armenian campaigners.
In London, the US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, warned that the
consequences of the decision to have a full vote on the genocide
resolution could be severe. "The Turks have been quite clear about
some of the measures they would have to take if this resolution
passes."
Mr Gates said Turkey was vital to the US war effort in Iraq, with 70
per cent of US air cargo and 30 per cent of fuel shipped to Iraq
passing through Turkey and the country’s Incirclik airbase acting as
a vital hub for US operations.
The vote also came as Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships
attacked suspected positions of Kurdish rebels near Iraq, a possible
prelude to a cross-border operation that the Bush administration has
opposed. The US, already preoccupied with efforts to stabilise other
areas of Iraq, believes that Turkish intervention in the relatively
peaceful north could further destabilise the country.
Turkey did its best to confirm Mr Gates’ warning. "This draft
resolution will put US soldiers in danger," Egemen Bagis, an adviser
to the Turkish president, Tayyip Erdogan, told CNN. "If our ally
accuses us of crimes that we did not commit then we will start to
question the advantages of our co-operation.
"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball. I can assure you
Turkey knows how to play hardball."
He promised that if the resolution was passed "we will do something
and I can promise you it won’t be pleasant".
Public prosecutors in Turkey have previously used a law prohibiting
"insulting Turkishness" to silence some Turkish intellectuals who
spoke of atrocities endured by Armenians.
The son of a journalist killed earlier this year after calling the
massacre of Armenians genocide was convicted of insulting Turkey’s
identity for republishing his father’s remarks.
Arat Dink, editor of the Armenian newspaper Agos, received a one-year
suspended sentence for "insulting Turkishness", said his lawyer. He
said he would appeal against the sentences.
Mr Dink is the son of an ethnic Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, who
was convicted of the same charge and then killed by a Turkish youth
in January.
THE BACKGROUND
IN THE late 19th century the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian minority,
numbering an estimated two million, was encouraged by exiled groups
in the United States, Geneva and in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to
assert its nationalism.
Repression by Ottoman irregulars, mainly Kurds, led to the massacre
of some 30,000 Armenians in eastern Anatolia in 1894-6.
Several thousand more were killed in Constantinople in August 1896
after Armenian extremists seized the Ottoman Bank to draw attention
to their cause.
The massacres were halted after the Great Powers threatened to
intervene.
– WHAT HAPPENED IN 1915?:
As the Ottomans fought Russian forces in eastern Anatolia during the
First World War, many Armenians formed partisan groups to assist the
invading Russian armies. On 24 April, 1915, Turkey arrested and
killed hundreds of the Armenian intelligentsia. In May of that year
Ottoman commanders began the mass deportation of Armenians from
eastern Turkey thinking they might assist Russian invaders.
Thousands were marched from the Anatolian borders toward Syria and
Mesopotamia (now Iraq) and Armenians say some 1.5 million died either
in massacres or from starvation or deprivation as they were marched
through the desert.
It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern,
systematic genocides, as many Western sources point to the sheer
scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organised plan
to eliminate the Armenians. The event is also said to be the
second-most studied case of genocide. To date 21 countries have
officially recognised the campaign as genocide.
– TURKEY’S VIEW:
Turkey has always denied there was a systematic campaign to
annihilate Armenians, saying that thousands of Turks and Armenians
died in ethnic violence as the Ottoman Empire started to collapse and
fought a Russian invasion of its eastern provinces during the First
World War.
The modern Turkish republic was established in 1923 after the Ottoman
empire collapsed.
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