TURKISH, ARMENIAN GROUPS STEP UP LOBBYING EFFORTS AS KEY VOTE NEARS
By Kevin Bogardus
The Hill
turkish-armenian-groups-step-up-lobbying-efforts-a s-key-vote-nears
Feb 11 2010
Both sides in a contentious debate over a proposed genocide resolution
are pumping up their grassroots campaigns in anticipation of a key
congressional vote.
Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, recently announced that on March 4 his panel will mark up a
non-binding resolution that recognizes the killing of an estimated 1.5
million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks during World War I as genocide.
That has set off a scramble in Washington as lobbyists for both sides
coordinate lawmaker visits, gather signatures for petitions and rev up
phone banks for what could be the last step before a House floor vote.
Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee
of America, said he was "very confident" that the resolution would
pass the committee and it has "very strong prospects for passage"
on the House floor.
The resolution passed the House committee in 2007 by a close vote
with 27 members voting for it, versus 21 voting against it. It does
not have the same number of co-sponsors this time, though, with 137
lawmakers signing onto the bill so far compared to 212 by the end of
last Congress.
Like last time, Turkish-American groups and the government of Turkey
will lobby heavily against the resolution in Congress.
"This resolution is one-sided and ignores historical atrocities
committed against those of Turkish descent during this turbulent
period in history," said G. Lincoln McCurdy, president of the Turkish
Coalition of America. "The committee’s choice to win quick political
points with the Armenian-American lobby would surely be detrimental
to the ongoing progress to bring peace between the peoples of Turkey
and Armenia."
The Turkish Embassy also has a roster of high-profile K Street talent
ready to defeat the resolution, including former House Speaker
Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), now at Dickstein Shapiro, and past House
Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt (Mo.), at his own firm and PR giant
Fleishman-Hillard.
Turkish officials have said that passing the resolution will hurt
the national security interests of the United States since Turkey
is a key ally of the U.S. military in the Middle East. That pressure
ultimately forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to withdraw
the resolution from a floor vote in 2007. More recently, Turkish
officals have said it could hamper the protocols Turkey reached with
Armenia last year to reestablish relations between the two nations.
A big difference for the resolution this time on Capitol Hill will
be the new administration. Veering from his promise during the
presidential campaign, President Barack Obama has not called the
massacre of Armenians a genocide. His administration has also come
under increasing pressure from Armenian-American groups to not give
Turkey free reign in the peace agreement it reached with Armenia
last year.
But Hamparian believes the Obama administration will not mount the
same lobbying effort against the resolution as the past White House
did. In 2007, President George W. Bush made several public statements
opposing the bill while high-ranking officials, such as Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, lobbied
lawmakers to move against it as well.
Hamparian pointed to remarks recently made by Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon at a Feb. 1
press conference that the Turkish-Armenian peace accord needs to
move forward "independently" of other issues, including the genocide
resolution. Typically, the State Department has outright opposed the
resolution under prior administrations.
"If Secretary Gordon’s statement reflects the view of this
administration, we are not going to see the same strident opposition to
the resolution as the Bush administration expressed," Hamparian said.