U.S. PRESIDENT: CONGRESS SHOULD NOT DEAL WITH HISTORY OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Turkish Press
Oct 17 2007

WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. President George W. Bush said Wednesday that the
U.S. Congress should not deal with the history of the Ottoman Empire.

"One thing the Congress should not be doing is sorting out the
historical record of the Ottoman Empire," Bush said when commenting
over a bill on the Armenian allegations regarding the incidents
of 1915.

"The Congress had better things to do than to turn a democratic ally
in the Muslim world against us and particularly one who gives a vital
support to our army everyday in countries like Iraq," Bush said.

Bush also said that staging a cross-border operation into north of
Iraq would not serve Turkey’s interests.

"Actually they have troops already stationed in Iraq and they’ve
had troops stationed there for quite a while. We don’t think it’s in
their interest to send more troops in," he said.

Bush said that the U.S. shared Turkey’s concerns about terrorist
activities, but that there should a better way to deal with the issue
than sending additional troops into Iraq.