The National , UAE
March 23 2009

Obama hesitates over Armenian pledge

Sharmila Devi, Foreign Correspondent

NEW YORK // As a senator running for president, Barack Obama pledged
repeatedly he would recognise the `genocide’ of 1.5 million Armenians
almost 100 years ago, but recent signals indicate that presidential
realities are complicating those idealistic campaign pledges.

Mr Obama makes his first trip to Turkey next month amid a growing
campaign by Armenian-Americans and their supporters to persuade
Congress to pass a resolution that would publicly recognise as
genocide the massacres that occurred during the break-up of the
Ottoman empire.

Turkey vigorously denies the charge and has lobbied hard against any
change in US policy, arguing it would upset recent steps towards a
rapprochement between Ankara and the republic of Armenia. Turkey has
also pointed to its regional importance, including its role in Iraq
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Michael Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council,
acknowledged the delicacy of the situation last week.

`Our focus is on how, moving forward, the US can help Armenia and
Turkey work together to come to terms with the past,’ he said. `It is
important that countries have an open and honest dialogue about the
past. At the same time, we want to work closely with both Turkey and
Armenia on the key issues that confront the region.’

Robert Wood, a state department spokesman, was asked at a briefing
whether the government would support the Armenian resolution in the
House of Representatives, particularly after Mr Obama, Joe Biden, the
vice president, and Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, had
supported it.

`We obviously want to take a close look at it,’ Mr Wood tersely
replied. `I don’t want to give you ¦ I don’t want to go any further
on it until we have had a chance to take a closer look at it and
discuss it within the government. And that’s where I’m going to leave
it.’

Ronald Reagan is the only US president to have referred to `the
genocide of the Armenians’ and that was in 1981. Historians outside of
Turkey have long referred to genocide, but US officials use a variety
of euphemisms, including mass killing, atrocities and annihilation.

Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee
of America (Anca), was confident Mr Obama would fulfil his
promises. `He’s been extremely clear over the course of the last
several years; he’s a man of his word and he’s never been shy of
speaking the truth.’

Mr Obama made several statements on the genocide issue last year while
his campaign issued a fact sheet just four days before November’s
presidential elections that said: `Obama has stood with the
Armenian-American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgement of
the Armenian genocide.’

He said: `I also share with Armenian-Americans ` so many of whom are
descended from genocide survivors ` a principled commitment to
commemorating and ending genocide. That starts with acknowledging the
tragic instances of genocide in world history.’

The Armenian-American community is estimated at 1.5 million. Mr
Hamparian said about 45,000 people so far had either called, e-mailed
or written in support of the congressional resolution.

`It has never served our national interest to become complicit in the
denial of genocide, and it never will,’ said Adam Schiff, a Democratic
congressman whose California district has the largest number of
Armenian-Americans and who introduced the legislation on Tuesday.

`While there are still some survivors left, we have a compelling moral
obligation to speak plainly about the past.’

Lobbying efforts were likely to pick up pace before Mr Obama’s visit
to Turkey on April 15. Meanwhile, April 24 is the day commemorating
the massacres of Armenians during the First World War.

`The latest resolution uses the exact, word-for-word language of a
resolution last year that Obama supported,’ said Mr Hamparian, who
also referred to `bullying’ and intense lobbying by Turkey to prevent
the legislation.

Ahmet Davultoglu, the chief Turkish foreign policy adviser, told The
Washington Post he made the point to US officials last week that
US-Turkish relations had improved considerably since the US invasion
of Iraq in 2003, when Ankara refused to co-operate militarily with
Washington.

Supporters of the US resolution include Jewish-American groups,
although Israel, which lumps its historic Armenian population along
with the Palestinians, has not recognised the Armenian massacres as
genocide.

Close Turkish-Israeli ties took a jolt when Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
prime minister of Turkey, walked out of a discussion on Gaza with
Shimon Peres, Israeli president, at the Davos forum in January.

Last Updated: March 23. 2009 12:32AM UAE / March 22. 2009 8:32PM GMT
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