NewsOK.com
Feb 6 2010

US Congress to take up Armenia resolution

The Oklahoman
February 5, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) ‘ A U.S. congressional panel will consider a
resolution to declare the World War I-era killings of more than a
million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks a genocide.

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday
announced it had scheduled a debate on the resolution for March 4. The
State Department had no immediate comment.

The issue has the potential to raise U.S. tensions with Turkey, which
has lobbied intensively against past attempts to pass the resolution,
while the Armenian-American Diaspora groups have pressed for its
passage.

Historians estimate that 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman
Turks in 1915. The event is widely viewed by scholars as the first
genocide of the 20th century, but Turkey insists the death toll has
been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and
unrest.

Debate on the bill was proposed by Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, who co-sponsored the legislation. It
comes just months after Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark agreement
to establish diplomatic relations and open their sealed border after a
century of enmity. Led by the Swiss, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton played a pivotal role in brokering the signing of that
deal in October.

In April, President Barack Obama came under fire from
Armenian-American groups for backtracking on a campaign pledge to
declare the killings genocide, on grounds that he did not want to
upset the diplomacy that was then under way.

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