Voice of America
Oct 13 2007
US Secretary of State Rice Urges Turkish Restraint Over Genocide
Resolution, Kurdish Rebels
By VOA News
13 October 2007
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appealed to Turkey for
restraint, both against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and in
reaction to a genocide resolution approved this week by a U.S.
congressional panel.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right, and U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates at a news conference in Moscow, 12 Oct 2007
Rice, who is in Russia, told reporters Saturday that it is a
difficult time for U.S.-Turkish relations. She said two senior U.S.
diplomats are in Ankara for talks to reassure Turkey that the United
States values the relationship.
The diplomats, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried and U.S.
Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman, a former U.S. ambassador to
Ankara, are expected to discuss Turkish plans for a military attack
on Kurdish rebels across the border in Iraq. Washington opposes such
plans.
Rice also said she spoke with Turkey’s president, prime minister and
foreign minister by phone Friday about the U.S. congressional
resolution declaring mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as
genocide.
The Bush administration strongly opposes the resolution, saying
Ankara could restrict critical supply routes to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Ankara recalled its ambassador in Washington after the resolution
passed the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday. Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials say the
measure will hurt bilateral relations.
Earlier Saturday, Turkish media reported that a government minister
has canceled a trip to the United States because of the resolution.
State-run Anatolia said Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen will not attend
an upcoming U.S.-Turkish investment conference in New York.
Armenians accuse Ottoman Turks of massacring one-and-a-half million
Armenians from 1915 to 1923 in systematic deportations and killings
to drive them out of eastern Turkey. Turkey denies that genocide took
place. It calls the death toll exaggerated and says the Armenians
died in civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.