ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION CAUSES OUTRAGE IN TURKEY

News Hour Extra (PBS)
Oct 16 2007

Despite opposition by Turkish leaders and President Bush, the
U.S. House of Representatives is moving forward on a resolution calling
the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a "genocide."

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the resolution on October
10. It will be voted on by the entire House of Representatives by
mid-November.

Turkey’s Reaction

The subject of the Armenian killings in the early 1900s is highly
political and heated in Turkey.

Citizens staged protests against the U.S. measure in the streets of
Turkey’s major cities and the country’s leaders have publicly rejected
the House panel vote.

After recalling its ambassador from the United States, the government
of Turkey issued a statement of protest.

"The United States of America legitimized the Armenian genocide
claim, which has swung over Turkey’s head like a stick," said Turkish
Vice-President Erkan Onsel.

Reading and Discussion Questions "The U.S. has made it clear once
again that it targets Turkey."

The Turkish armed forces chief went one step further, telling the
newspaper Milliyet that "we could not explain this to our public. The
U.S., in that respect, has shot itself in the foot."

The debate over ‘genocide’

The resolution refers to a period of time from 1915 to 1917 when as
many as 1.5 million Armenians were massacred in the final years of
the Turkish- run Ottoman Empire.

The overwhelming majority of historians call the event as a genocide,
which is defined as "violent crimes committed against groups with
the intent to destroy the existence of the group."

However, Turkey only acknowledges a smaller number of deaths occurred,
and denies that they constitute genocide because they occurred during a
time of unrest and fighting between populations of the Ottoman Empire.

The Turkish government has spent millions of dollars on a public
relations campaign portraying the Armenian genocide as false, including
full page ads in major U.S. newspapers saying the resolution is a
biased interpretation of the tragic events.

But according to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents
a district with a large number of Armenian Americans, a resolution
declaring the killings genocide is 90 years overdue.

"While that may have been a long time ago, genocide is taking place
now in Darfur, it did within recent memory in Rwanda, so as long as
there is genocide there is need to speak out against it," Pelosi said.

History of the killings

Starting in the fifteenth century, most of modern Armenia was part
of the vast Ottoman Empire ruled by Muslim Turks.

In 1908, a group called the Young Turks took over government of the
Ottoman Empire in a revolution supported by the Armenian population.

The Young Turk government initially promised improvements in the
treatment of ethnic minorities, but after gaining power the group
turned on the Armenians.

In 1915, during the early stages of World War I, Turkey was facing the
threat of attack by both Russia and England. Claiming the Armenian
population might instigate an internal rebellion, the government
began to round up, kill, torture and deport Armenians, according to
a U.S. Library of Congress study.

After the attacks, many of the survivors fled the area and migrated
to other countries, particularly eastward to Russia.

The Ottoman government was defeated in World War I. But by 1917,
fewer than 200,000 of the roughly three million Armenians living in
Turkey before the war remained, the study found.

Relations with the U.S.

Both President Bush and the U.S. secretary of defense made public
statements encouraging Congress not to pass the resolution because
of potential damage to diplomatic relations.

The U.S. military uses Turkey as a key supply route for troops in Iraq,
and Turkey has remained America’s strongest Muslim ally, causing the
country to lose face within the rest of the Muslim world.

At the same time, Turkey has been threatening to invade the relatively
stable northern region of Iraq, known as Kurdistan, to fight Kurdish
terrorists who have crossed into Turkey and have planned sporadic
terrorist attacks.

With emotions running high, diplomats worry that action in the
U.S. House could jeopardize American efforts to keep Turkey out of Iraq

"I don’t think that anybody who’s ever visited Turkey can be in any
doubt that Turks, at all levels, of all levels of education and all
parts of the country, view this kind of a resolution as criticism,"
Mark Parris, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey told the NewsHour.

"All of them believe this will be a major setback, because it is
perceived as a major insult to Turkish credibility, honor by a
long-standing ally."

In 1915, during the early stages of World War I, Turkey was facing the
threat of attack by both Russia and England. Claiming the Armenian
population might instigate an internal rebellion, the government
began to round up, kill, torture and deport Armenians, according to
a U.S. Library of Congress study.

After the attacks, many of the survivors fled the area and migrated
to other countries, particularly eastward to Russia.

The Ottoman government was defeated in World War I. But by 1917,
fewer than 200,000 of the roughly three million Armenians living in
Turkey before the war remained, the study found.

— Compiled by Talea Miller for NewsHour Extra

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