CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Aug. 20, 2008 – 1:25 p.m.
D.C. Makes a Statement on Armenian Genocide
By Colby Itkowitz, CQ Staff
Late last year, lawmakers balked under pressure from the Turkish
government, which warned against the United States officially declaring
a century-old massacre of Armenians as genocide. Apparently, the
District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment doesn’t scare that
easily.
The city agency has given its stamp of approval to convert the former
Federal-American National Bank into the Armenian Genocide Museum of
America, according to public records.
"Visitors to the museum will come to understand the Armenian Genocide as
the prototype for modern crimes against humanity, including the
Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur," a Web site for the museum says.
The debate over whether to declare the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians
in the former Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago heated up in Congress
when Bush administration officials warned that such a move would
threaten U.S. relations with Turkey. The resolution (H Res 106) was
approved in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 10, 2007, but
was never sent to the floor.
The museum is set to open in 2011.
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Source: CQ Today Online News
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