FINAL US VOTE ON GENOCIDE RESOLUTION BY YEAR END

Newsroom America
Oct 15 2007
New Zealand

US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has predicted a resolution that
calls the mass killing of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 genocide will
have a final vote in the House of Representatives before it adjourns
this year.

Turkey recalled its ambassador to the United States last week after
a House committee carried a vote labeling the massacre of Armenians
as genocide.

Armenia alleges that Turkey killed up to 1.5 million of its people
in an organized campaign to force them out of what is now eastern
Turkey in 1915-17. Turkey has acknowledged that many Armenians died
but rejects allegations of genocide.

President Bush has earlier urged politicians not to pass the resolution
saying "its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key
ally in NATO and in the global war on terror."

Turkish President Abdullah Gul had warned of "serious problems that
will emerge in bilateral relations if the bill is adopted."

But Speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC television she expected to see a
final vote on the measure before the House of Representatives adjourns
for the year.

She said no matter when and where it occurred, Congress had an
obligation to speak out against genocide.

"It is a House resolution. It is non-binding. It is a statement made
by 23 other countries, we would be the 24th country to make this
statement. Genocide still exists. And we saw it in Rwanda, we see it
now in Darfur," she told ABC.

She said the United States had a moral obligation to speak out about
the massacre.