BACKERS OF ARMENIA GENOCIDE BILL AGREE TO DELAY VOTE

Agence France Presse
Oct 26 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct 25, 2007 (AFP) – Backers of a bill in the US Congress
labeling massacres of Armenians as "genocide" Thursday bowed to White
House pressure and agreed to delay the measure, which had sparked fury
in Turkey. Four key sponsors of the bill, censuring the Ottoman Empire
for the World War I killings, asked House of Representatives speaker
Nancy Pelosi not to hold a debate on the issue. Despite signs that
support for the measure had waned in recent days, its main sponsors,
Democrats Adam Schiff, Brad Sherman, Anna Eshoo and Frank Pallone,
said it still had significant backing in Congress. "We believe that
a large majority of our colleagues want to support a resolution
recognizing the genocide on the House floor, and they will do so,
provided the timing is more favorable," they said in a letter to
Pelosi. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice had repeatedly called on the House Democratic leadership to pull
the bill, fearing lasting damage with Turkey, a key US military and
diplomatic ally. But Pelosi had resisted pressure to pull the bill
from the chamber, and had said she was determined it would go to
a vote, buoying Armenian exiles who have pressed for years for the
measure. Democrats argued that by refusing to condemn the Armenian
massacres as "genocide" the United States will encourage impunity
for current and future crimes against humanity, for example the
killings of civilians in Darfur. Republican House minority leader
John Boehner welcomed the move to pull the bill, but said the whole
episode reflected badly on the Democratic leadership and "calls
their judgment into question." "Let’s be clear: the suffering the
Armenian people endured was tragic, there is no doubt about that,"
he said in a statement. "But this 90-year-old issue should be settled
by historians, not by politicians." Armenians say at least 1.5 million
of their people were killed from 1915 to 1917 under what they describe
as an campaign of deportation and murder by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey
bitterly disputes the number of dead and the characterization of the
killings as a genocide. Although the resolution is only symbolic,
Turkey recalled its ambassador to Washington week and called off
visits to the United States by at least two of its officials. The
angry reaction has fueled fears within the US administration that it
could lose access to a military base in Turkey, a NATO ally, which
provides a crucial staging ground for US supplies headed to Iraq and
Afghanistan. The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committee
held an intense debate on the resolution on October 11, and passed
it to the House floor. It had been expected to come to a vote in
November in the full House, but as its potential geopolitical impact
became known, it started to lose support, even among some Democratic
members of the House.