Turkish general warns against genocide resolution

By Molly Moore, Washington Post | October 15, 2007

ISTANBUL – The commander of Turkey’s armed forces warned that
US-Turkish military relations will be irreparably damaged if the US
House of Representatives approves a resolution accusing his country of
genocide for the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago,
according to an interview published yesterday.

"If this resolution passed in the committee passes the House as well,
our military ties with the US will never be the same again," General
Yasar Buyukanit told the daily newspaper Milliyet in the interview.

The admonition from the senior officer in Turkey’s politically
powerful military echoed warnings from the country’s top civilian
political leaders since the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved
the resolution Wednesday. Turkey argues that the killings and
disappearances of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were not genocide
but the result of brutal war during the last years of the Ottoman
Empire.

"The United States is clearly an important ally," Buyukanit said. "But
an allied country does not behave in this way."

Bush administration officials and US military leaders who oppose the
resolution say they fear Turkey could limit crucial air and land
supply lines into Iraq as punishment if the measure is accepted by the
full House of Representatives.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, reaffirmed that
the resolution would be called to the floor this week. A similar
resolution was pulled from the floor in 2000 by then-speaker Dennis
Hastert, an Illinois Republican, after he was asked to do so by
President Clinton. Pelosi said she had not heard from President Bush
about this bill.

"There’s never been a good time" for the measure, Pelosi said on ABC’s
"This Week," adding that when she entered Congress 20 years ago, "it
wasn’t the right time because of the Soviet Union. Then that fell, and
then it wasn’t the right time because of the Gulf War I. And then it
wasn’t the right time because of overflights of Iraq. And now it’s not
the right time because of Gulf War II. And, again, the survivors of
the Armenian genocide are not going to be with us."

Ross Wilson, US ambassador to Turkey, said in a telephone interview
>From Ankara, the capital, that "Turkish officials have not discussed
with us any specific measures they might take or look at taking if the
resolution passes."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dispatched two senior deputies to
Ankara on Saturday to assure Turkey that the Bush administration will
continue to try to defeat the resolution in Congress.

The Turkish government has recalled its ambassador from Washington and
canceled a Turkish-US Business Council conference that had been
scheduled for Tuesday in New York. Turkish State Minister Kursad
Tuzmen also canceled a trip to the United States planned for this
week, according to the Anatolian News Agency.

Turkish anger over the genocide measure has coincided with growing
frustration here over US and Iraqi failures to curtail Kurdish
separatist guerrillas who Turkish officials say are staging attacks in
Turkey from bases in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to ask Parliament
this week to authorize cross-border military operations against
headquarters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as PKK, training
camps, and other operational bases in northern Iraq. Officials expect
the measure to win approval easily.

As part of escalating border tensions in recent days, the Turkish
military fired a barrage of artillery shells into the northern Iraqi
village of Zakhu late Saturday and yesterday morning, according to
news service reports from the region.

(c) Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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