LATE CONGRESSMAN LANTOS HAD STORMY RELATIONSHIP WITH TURKEY
Umýt Enginsoy

Turkish Daily News
Feb 13 2008
Turkey

The only Holocaust survivor in Congress had voted for and against
‘Armenian genocide’ resolutions at different times

In his long career in the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign
Affairs Committee, either as the panel’s chairman or senior Democratic
member, Tom Lantos several times had to deal with resolutions calling
for U.S. recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire as genocide, winning Turkish officials’ admiration
and invoking ire at different times.

Lantos, 80, died Monday at Maryland’s Bethesda Naval Hospital near
Washington from cancer of the esophagus.

When the House panel, then called the International Relations
Committee, took up a genocide resolution in October 2000, Lantos
stood against the argument that the Armenian deaths amounted to
genocide. His staunch defense of the pro-Turkish position made him
a hero in the eyes of many Turkish officials.

The resolution passed the committee but was stopped on the floor
when then President Bill Clinton made a last-minute personal appeal
against its endorsement.

A similar legislation came to the same committee in September 2005,
but this time Lantos’ position was different.

Championing Israel’s interests in the U.S. Congress, Lantos was
frustrated by what he saw as moves by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoðan’s government for rapprochement with Iran and Syria, top
adversaries of the United States and the Jewish state in the Middle
East.

Changing positions:

Lantos this time said he still did not believe that the Armenian
killings constituted genocide, but that he would support the resolution
to punish Turkey. Passing the committee, the bill failed to reach a
House floor vote.

Then came a visit by Khaled Mashaal, top leader of the radical Hamas
group in Palestine, a sworn enemy of Israel, to Turkey in early 2006,
increasing Lantos’ anger with the Erdoðan government.

In October last year, the third attempt in the past nine years for
the passage of a genocide resolution reached the same House panel’s
agenda. Following the Democratic Party’s landslide victory in the
November 2006 congressional elections, Lantos this time was chairman
of the panel, renamed the Foreign Affairs Committee.

At the time Ankara warned that any congressional recognition of the
genocide claim would likely lead to the curbing of bilateral military
ties with the United States, hurting U.S. operations in Iraq.

Speaking at the markup hearing on the resolution, Lantos said he was
torn between a need to recognize a "historical fact" and an urge to
protect U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Still the Turks hoped that he would
oppose the resolution in a final panel vote, but to their huge dismay,
he voted for it.

Turkish diplomats voiced their shock and disbelief, and Egemen Baðýþ,
a leading parliamentary deputy from Turkey’s ruling party, criticized
Lantos, saying his understanding of history was changing with time.

The bill once again passed the committee but did not come to a
floor vote.

Lantos announced in early January that he had cancer and would not
seek a 15th term in the November polls. But nearly a month later he
died. Despite some bitter memories, Turkish diplomats were saddened
by the death of a former ally, with Turkish Ambassador to Washington
Nabi Þensoy sending a message of condolences to Lantos’ widow, Annette.

The Armenian National Committee of America and the Armenian Assembly
of America, the two largest U.S. Armenian groups, have also said that
their community was mourning the congressman’s death.

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