Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
October 18, 2007 Thursday

Armenian legislators applaud resolution on massacre

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenian lawmakers rose to their feet in
applause, and their president urged the United States to go further
after a U.S. House panel approved a resolution labeling the World War
I-era killings of Armenians by Turks genocide.

The decision of the House Foreign Affairs Committee was a triumph for
Armenian-American interest groups who have lobbied Congress for
decades. The resolution is expected to pass a House vote despite the
Bush administration’s concerns about harming relations with Turkey —
a key supply route to U.S. troops in Iraq.

If Congress recognizes the killings as genocide, it could be a
cathartic moment for this landlocked republic of rugged highlands.
Armenians have been striving for decades to gain recognition of their
stance in a dispute that has poisoned relations with modern Turkey.

Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Scholars view it as the
first genocide of the 20th century, but Turkey says the toll has been
inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress