OHIO ELECTIONS SPAT INVOLVES TURKISH HISTORY

Dayton Daily News
o-elections-spat-involves-turkish-history-119551.h tml
May 14 2009
Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The state Elections Commission agreed Thursday
to hear a case far outside the typical realm of Ohio politics, one
involving claims of genocide, Turkish history, U.S. foreign policy
and a growing and personal political rivalry.

At issue are comments made by an Armenian-American congressional
candidate during the 2008 campaign. A Republican congresswoman from
Cincinnati, Jean Schmidt, claims her opponent violated election law
when he accused her of being a puppet of Turkish efforts to deny that
the mass killings of Armenians during World War I constituted genocide.

The commission on Thursday found probable cause that David Krikorian’s
statements violated election law, voting unanimously to bring the
case to a full hearing.

The 94-year-old killings in Turkey are an unlikely topic for a
congressional campaign in America’s heartland, where Schmidt’s
staunchly conservative values find favor among a large portion of
her constituents. But for Krikorian, Schmidt’s comments that she
doesn’t have enough evidence to call the killings of an estimated
1.5 million Armenians "genocide" make her morally unfit to serve in
Congress. Krikorian refused to shake the hand of Schmidt’s attorney
following the hearing Thursday.

"It is my right under political free speech to point out these facts
that she denies the Armenian genocide," Krikorian told the commission
Thursday. He alleged that Schmidt had taken campaign donations from
Turkish interests in return for "denying" the genocide.

"And, yes, I refer to it as blood money because where I come from,
when you take money to deny the killing of innocent women and children,
that is blood money. That’s exactly what it is. It’s reprehensible."

But the dispute isn’t just about the past — Krikorian is challenging
Schmidt again in 2010, but as a Democrat. He won 18 percent of the
vote as an independent in 2008, a performance Krikorian claims has
Schmidt worried enough about 2010 to file a "frivolous" elections
complaint to discredit him.

Schmidt’s attorney, Donald Brey, refuted all of Krikorian’s claims
Thursday, taking particular issue with his equating Schmidt’s
unwillingness to call the killings genocide with denial.

"She wasn’t a genocide denier … She didn’t do anything as a quid
pro quo," Brey said.

Federal Elections Commission records show Schmidt received $3,300
from the Turkish American Heritage Political Action Committee between
January and October 2008. The committee was formed to defend Turkish
heritage against "slanderous campaigns" carried out by ethnic groups
in the United States to influence public opinion.

Schmidt’s unwillingness to proclaim what many history scholars regard
as fact is also shared by the U.S. government. The U.S. foreign policy
establishment’s careful positioning on the issue is driven by the
importance of maintaining productive relations with a moderate ally
in the Middle East.

In April, President Barack Obama refrained from branding the WWI-era
massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey a "genocide,"
and instead referred to the killings that began in 1915 as "one of
the great atrocities of the 20th century." The careful words were a
backtrack from Obama’s campaign promise to refer to the killing as
genocide, which the Bush administration also declined to do.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland recognized the killings as genocide in 2007,
and former President Ronald Reagan did so in 1981.

Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, contending the
toll has been inflated and that the casualties were victims of civil
war. It says Turks also suffered losses in the hands of Armenian gangs.

Turkey and Armenia have had no diplomatic ties since closing their
border in 1993 because of a Turkish protest of Armenia’s occupation
of land claimed by Azerbaijan.