OBAMA COMMENTS IRK ARMENIANS
By Kenneth P. Vogel

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4/6/09 2:53 PM EDT

President Barack Obama’s delicate dance around a highly sensitive
regional issue in Turkey Monday irked a small but influential American
political constituency.

President Barack Obama’s delicate dance around a highly sensitive
regional issue in Turkey on Monday irked a small but influential
American political constituency, which is accusing him of falling
"far short" of a campaign promise.

At issue is the recognition as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million
Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman government in Turkey beginning
in 1915.

Obama has unabashedly encouraged such recognition in the past. But he
notably dialed back his rhetoric at a Monday press conference in Ankara
with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, for whose government the issue
is still quite raw, and later in an address to the Turkish Parliament.

Obama "missed a valuable opportunity to honor his public pledge to
recognize the Armenian genocide," Aram Hamparian, executive director
of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement.

The Washington-based advocacy group endorsed Obama and boasts of
helping deliver large blocs of votes in swing states and tens of
thousands of dollars in campaign contributions. But on Monday, it
was encouraging its members to call the White House to urge Obama "to
be a man of his word and honor his pledge to recognize the Armenian
genocide" as well as to take action to stop the killing in Darfur.

The politically active Armenian-American Diaspora, for which
the genocide recognition is a major issue, has historically
been bipartisan. But it went heavily for Obama, who courted it
openly, locking up wide support with a strongly worded January 2008
statement casting himself as a "strong supporter of a U.S.-Armenian
relationship."

The statement articulated his "firmly held conviction that the Armenian
Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view,
but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body
of historical evidence."

In his speech Monday before the Turkish Parliament, Obama referred to
"the terrible events of 1915" and suggested "the best way forward
for the Turkish and Armenian people is a process that works through
the past in a way that is honest, open and constructive."

Though Obama said at the press conference that he stood by his 2008
position, he did not directly answer a question from a Chicago Tribune
reporter traveling with him in Turkey about whether he asked Gul
"to recognize the genocide by name."

Instead, Obama praised Gul for participating in "a series of
negotiations … between Armenia and Turkey to resolve a whole ho st
of longstanding issues, including this one."

"I want to be as encouraging as possible around those negotiations,
which are moving forward and could bear fruit very quickly very soon,"
Obama added. "And so, as a consequence, what I want to do is not focus
on my views right now, but focus on the views of the Turkish and the
Armenian people. If they can move forward and deal with a difficult and
tragic history, then I think the entire world should encourage them."

Asked if Obama’s statements on Monday represented a shift from his
campaign stance, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said the presidnet
"spoke about the issue today, both in his press conference and his
speech, so we don’t have anything further to add."

It’s a tricky issue for Obama, whose visit to the predominately Muslim
U.S. ally was intended to signal his desire to improve relations with
the larger Muslim world. Plus, Turkey is strategically important
in the U.S. fight against terrorism and for its proximity to Iraq,
Iran and Russia.

After Obama finished, Gul said: "We should let the historians, the
experts on the subject, sit down and talk about this issue. We are
ready to face the realities, the facts. It cannot be the politicians
and the legal experts who can make decisions here as to what happened
when, under what conditions, and who lost more lives, and who is
right and who is wrong."

The modern Turkish Republic, he said "did not create this into big
issue in order not to create greater hatred or hostility in future
generations.

But unfortunately, these issues politically, especially by the
Diaspora, have been brought to the agenda as a way to perhaps cling
to their identity."

The Armenian-American Diaspora has had an inordinate — and
deleterious — impact on U.S. relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan,
another U.S. ally often at odds with Armenia, asserted Adil Baguirov,
a managing director of both the U.S. Azeris Network and the U.S. Turkic
Network, Washington non-profits advocating Azeri and Turkish positions,
respectively.

He said "the overwhelming view and consensus is that President Obama
traveling to Turkey and speaking in the Grand National Assembly
(the Turkish Parliament) is a very positive thing, a big step in the
right direction and fulfills the expectation of Obama as being good
for the international image of the United States, particularly in
the Muslim world."

Hamparian, of the Armenian committee, said Obama’s willingness to "even
indirectly" discuss his stance on the genocide issue "represents a step
in the right direction, but far short of the clear promise he made
as a candidate that he would, as president, fully and unequivocally
recognize this crime against humanity."

Meanwhile, Bryan Ardouny, executive director of another Washington
advocacy group that lobbies on Armenian issues, the Armenian Assembly
of America, seemed more willing to give the president the benefit of
the doubt.

He said it was "significant" that Obama, while in Turkey, referenced
his 2008 stance, but added "I don’t have a comment one way or the
other if he should have done something more or less while in Turkey."

Ardouny’s group places more weight on what Obama will do or say on
April 24, the day on which Armenians commemorate the deaths.

"That is the date that everyone is looking at in terms of his pledge,
not necessarily what he did, or did not do, while in Turkey," Ardouny
said. "We’re looking forward to a statement that unequivocally affirms
the Armenian genocide, and we have every expectation that he will be
a man of his word."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress